


Reclaim

by TryingToBe



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Relationships, Character Death, F/M, Missing Scene, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Skye | Daisy Johnson-centric, all characters show up - Freeform, all of daisy's trauma is addressed, see ch1 author note
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:52:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29588898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TryingToBe/pseuds/TryingToBe
Summary: Daisy’s story following the course of the entire series. A collection of missing scenes during and between episodes, flashbacks to pre-series, and Daisy’s perspective on canon events.See ch 1 author note first.
Relationships: Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Lincoln Campbell/Skye | Daisy Johnson, Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Comments: 35
Kudos: 72





	1. Some of Us (1x01-1x09)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, long a/n but this is going to be a long fic, so bear with me.
> 
> 1) About content and triggers: There will be a range of potentially triggering material throughout the fic. Content/trigger warnings are chapter specific and listed at the start of every chapter. Though they come up and I discuss them, I’m never going to graphically portray things like self-harm or abuse. There won’t be any sex scenes. There will be some swearing throughout. This is a collection of scenes but I hope it will read like a single story. That being said, you should be able to skip chapters without it affecting the rest of the fic too much.
> 
> 2) About tags: I decided to tag major characters and relationships from the get go instead of adding as I update, but since this follows canon, obviously they’re not all relevant for all chapters. I only tagged pairings I’m writing a lot of scenes for and characters Im writing a lot of new scenes for (rather than just Daisys pov on canon). But just assume that everyone who interacts with Daisy in any meaningful way on the show will show up here at some point. Also assume that when Daisy is angry with or dislikes another character that I will be portraying them in a negative light because it’s her pov/story.
> 
> 3) About canon compliant: I tried to make it as canon compliant as possible. I do take liberties with how likely it is certain things happened, but I don’t ignore or change anything and try to build off of details and hints we were given. I’m including the episode numbers if anyone wants to know where exactly the scenes fit, but you should be able to just ignore them as page breaks.
> 
> 4) Important note: While I have my own experiences that allow me to relate to Daisy, I’ve never personally experienced some of the things that will be in this fic. I do research but I am writing everything as a what if scenario with the understanding that everyones experiences are individual. I want to explore Daisy’s thoughts and life, but not without empathy for the things real people may have lived. I know we sometimes act like how we talk about fiction doesn’t impact real people on the other side of the screen or something, but I know personally as a WOC, this is just not reality. Please know that I take that very seriously. That applies to all my fics, actually. <3
> 
> 5) About updates: Im going to try to update weekly on weekends, but we’ll see how that goes :)  
> Okay, thanks for reading all that and here we go! Hope you enjoy!
> 
> TW: mentions self harm, allusions to suicidal thoughts, mentions and implied child abuse, mentions racism

**Some of Us  
** Starsailor  
 _Heard you today, that isn’t my name  
_ _Some of us laugh, some of us cry  
_ _But its all just the way that we cope with our lives_  
 _My wandering soul found solace at last  
_ _I wanted to know how long it would last_

**1x01**

_Ten years ago_

It is a sunny, unremarkable day in New York City. Outside of St. Agnes Orphanage, Hell’s Kitchen, a little girl has just been uprooted from her life and dragged into a new one. Her foster parents, the only parents she could remember having, could no longer care for her, so she has been sent to the nearest group home.

She sits on the steps outside the church, hiccuping, tears running down her face. A scrawny teenager sits beside her.

The teen calls herself Skye. She doesn’t know what her name is, so this is what she goes by.

Skye’s hand rests comfortingly on the girl's back. She is the best person to comfort this child, as she has been through this herself, many times. She is also the only person to comfort this child. She doesn’t say anything yet, just lets her cry.

The child, Jane, wipes at her face with her hand. Sniffs. “Skye?” she asks.

“Yeah?”

Jane looks at her very seriously. Skye waits, bracing herself. And then, “If you could have any superpower, what would you have?”

Skye smiles. Kids are always more resilient than people think. “Hmm…” She pretends to think about her answer, but she already knows it. This is a game of pretend she has played before. An indulgence of fantasy and hope. If you could have any power in the world, if you could go to any place, if you could do anything, be anyone, what would you do? What would you become?

“I think I’d want to fly,” Skye answers like she always does.

“Boring!” exclaims Jane. “I said _any_.”

“What! I think it’d be cool.” Skye pokes at her, and Jane giggles wetly and wipes determinately again at her eyes, getting rid of the traces of tears. This girl is brave. Good, Skye thinks, she will need that.

“That’s what everyone says.”

“Well what would you want then?” Skye asks.

“Shape shifting, or talking to animals, or never having to sleep,” Jane lists off rapidly.

“Never having to sleep?” says Skye surprised. That’s a new one.

“Yeah, think about how much more time you would have to do fun things if you never had waste it sleeping.”

“Well, if it's more time you want, why not just the ability to slow down time,” Skye says rationally.

Janes face lights up. “Ohh or time travel?”

Skye scrunches her face. “That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.”

The girls continue to talk until the nuns call them all inside and they are separated. The nuns call Skye ‘Mary’ and Skye just rolls her eyes at them and waves bye to Jane.

That night Jane goes to bed alone. She is sharing a room with other girls her age, but they don’t say anything to her. Kids come and go all the time here. Jane closes her eyes and falls into a fitful sleep.

When Jane wakes up, she sees a folded paper bird has been left by her bed. She knows it was Skye, looking out for her. When Jane is older, she will learn that it is a crane. It means hope, good luck, and healing. Jane clutches it to her chest and feels better. When she looks closer at the paper, she realizes something has been written on the inside.

_I know it might feel like your whole life is over, but I promise, this is just the beginning._

Now

In the beginning, Skye is alone in an alley, in a van. She is parked out back because if she is going to get arrested she would rather not do it in front of other people. She hopes they only arrest her. She blocks out the mental image of what they _could_ do to her instead. No one would care about the homeless girl in the van, after all. But it was too late to back out now. So she ignores these darker thoughts and just keeps going on and on into her microphone, narrating dramatically. Waiting, waiting, waiting for someone to find her.

Someone does. He smirks at her, eyes twinkling. He is oddly kind looking and not scary, for a scary guy in a suit. He stands beside another man in dark sunglasses. Now _he_ was the kind of toolbag she expected.

“Hey. What up?”

They throw a bag over her head and lead her up a ramp onto what must be a plane. They take her into an interrogation room. Put her in a metal chair. Then they ask her what her name is. Her _real_ name. Well. If she knew that, she wouldn’t be here.

When the not that scary agent- who only scared her for a second by pulling out a giant needle- injects Agent ~~toolbag~~ Ward with their own truth serum, she grins. Okay, this could be fun. She’s not really sure if was actually a truth serum, or if they are trying to play her, but she finds she doesn’t mind if it’s the latter, it's pretty clever. She hopes it real. It would be hilarious if it was real. Gramsy. Skye smirks. But she doesn’t ask him anything too serious or at all related to what she actually wants to know. Just in case.

“Ward doesn’t like your style. Kinda think I do,” she tells Agent Coulson. He shows her Mike. But…that’s not right. Mike was just another person who got screwed over by the system. He just needed help.

“He just needs a break.”

“So give him one.”

Skye meets the rest of this rag tag team. Fitz and Simmons. (Engineering. Biochem.) They finish each others sentences like they have one mind. Agent May. The Pilot. Not here for any bullshit.

And then Skye gets kidnapped again, but this time it wasn’t on purpose and she’s in a little over her head here so she sends out a another signal beacon to SHIELD. This time when she’s asking them to find her it's with the desperate hope that they can save her and save Mike too.

Mike grabs her and she tries to get away but she can’t. He is dragging her around but when the shooting starts he protects her. Then May saves her and, _holy shit_ , Skye wants to be her when she grows up.

They rush downstairs together to Mike and Coulson.

“It matters who I am,” Mike says desperately, pleading for the world to recognize the truth of this simple statement. They need to help him.

“I could you know. Be a hero.”

Skye believes him. So does Coulson. “I’m counting on it,” he tells Mike.

A shot is fired.

But Mike is still alive.

It starts with a second chance. For Mike. And for Skye too.

She gets in Coulson’s car.

“The tide is rising.”

Holy crap, the car flies. She looks over at Coulson in surprise.

“You’re not scared of heights are you,” he asks her cheekily, sunglasses on.

Skye smiles broadly and shakes her head. “So cool,” she says as they take off.

* * *

**1x02**

Skye has never flown in a plane before. She’s always wanted to, but leaving the state was whole thing for foster families and Skye’s had never been inclined to take her anywhere anyway. Then when she was older it had been pointless, her van got her where she needed to go.

Now Skye looks out the window of the SHIELD plane, _The Bus_ , they call it, and she watches as they fly above the clouds. Agent May starts their descent over Peru and the view is breathtaking. The air is clear and the trees are so so green. From this high up, everything looks small and insignificant. It is even better than she imagined.

Everything about this is strange and new and exciting and already it’s more than Skye expected. She had mostly hoped they wouldn’t immediately lock her up in a dark hole never to be heard from again. When they didn’t and instead brought her to their plane, she hoped she could prove herself skilled and useful enough that they would let her get close enough to get what she needed. And somehow her insane plan worked better than even she thought it could, with an actual spot on their team. Skye thinks she is still in shock.

She knows the risk that Coulson is taking, letting her stay. And she knows she shouldn’t get too attached, but it hits her hard. No one has ever done that for her before. She doesn’t want to disappoint him. She wants to prove him right, to prove that she is worth keeping around.

It is an instinctual reaction, at this point, wanting them to like her, to want her. It is the same feeling she used to get when she was younger, before she knew better. So if she shows the parts of herself she thinks they will like and keeps the rest buried, it is just easier for everyone that way.

But she tries not to think about any of this yet. For now, she just gazes out the window, and enjoys the view, looking out at her future adventures.

* * *

**1x03**

The team get back to the Bus after the mission with Quinn and go their separate ways. Skye quickly changes and then goes to the training area. She starts to wrap her hands, thinking about what just happened. She almost died back at that mansion. Quinn almost shot her. Quinn’s goons could have killed her. But Ward saved her. She thought about what he said before the mission.

_“Every agent has one. A defining moment.”_

A defining moment.

Skye starts to hit the bag. Her fists make a thump sound with every punch she lands. She lets her mind wander.

Thump.

She is Mary-Sue and she is four years old and kids are crying and the nuns are impatient and it is dark and she is cold and she is surrounded by so many other children but she is lost.

Thump.

She is five years old and she is in the hospital with her throat burning and itching and she is scared and alone. A nurse smiles kindly at her and gives her a small hula girl to play with.

Thump.

She is seven years old and her foster father is angry but she can’t run, she can’t stop it, she can only let it happen, helpless.

Thump.

She goes by Sue now and she is eight and a blind boy named Matt is beating up his bullies and that is _so cool_ and she wishes she could do that but she can’t.

Thump.

She is nine and this family is different, they’re nice to her. They give her a real bag for her things because she was using a trash bag and she calls Mrs. Brody ‘mom’ and she wants to stay but they’re sending her away because she is not good enough and there is nothing she can do about it. She packs her bag. She is just Mary now.

Thump.

She is ten and she tries to make friends wherever she goes and she hopes each family will last. For Christmas she asks for parents who are nice and who love her. She asks to be found. On her eleventh birthday she gets sent back to St. Agnes. It is really just the anniversary of the first time she was left on their door.

Thump.

She is eleven and she gets terrible grades in class because she is not smart enough. She changes schools all the time and she _wants_ to learn but nobody teaches anything the same and she can never catch up what she misses and she can never concentrate anyway. They call her impulsive and distracted and all she hears is that there is something wrong with her.

Thump.

She is twelve and she knows things now. She knows how to pretend. She knows how to make herself useful. She knows when she is white enough and when she is not. She knows when to charm and when to hide. She does not know her name or birthdate. She does not know if she is Chinese or Japanese or Korean or something else. She thinks if she knew these things, then she would know how to be proud instead of being a punch line.

Thump.

She is thirteen and she figures out how to _really_ use a computer and she learns that she _is_ good at something, she can _do_ something. Her whole world is cracked open with possibilities. She can fight back without her fists. She looks for herself and she realizes there is no record of her at the hospital or from any of the homes she has stayed at. They are hiding something from her. She has new focus. She is Skye now.

Thump.

She is fourteen and she keeps her bag packed. She does not make friends at the orphanage, because she will be gone soon, or they will. When her latest placement is bad she tries to hack records to keep them from getting more kids and when she doesn’t get caught she figures she must have done it right.

Thump.

She is fifteen and she hates the nuns who uphold a system of fear and punishment and wield faith as their weapon and demand the blind obedience of children. And most of the nuns hate her right back, but Sister McKenna tries to help. She says God is love, but Skye does not know love. She knows only that there is no god that is willing to save her. She knows her parents are not going to save her. She is going to have to find them.

Thump.

She is still fifteen and the nuns still hate her and she is never a good fit and she has no parents and she is alone. She is done. They ask her questions because she is all bruises and sharp edges and pain and she is a danger to herself. They tell her to be honest but she knows better by now. The world is full of sad stories like hers and she is not special. Adults say they will help but they never do. And she knows how to act so she lies and charms and she is fine.

Thump.

She is sixteen and she is tired of pain and rejection and powerlessness. She is tired of being told that this time it will work out, only be to told to pack her bags. She is tired of shrinks that don’t help and nuns that send her into hell and don’t care if she comes back burned. She is tired of having hope and losing it. She packs her bag and does not look back. She runs.

Thump.

She is seventeen and homeless in New York and she knows how to steal and how to lie and how to hide. She meets other teens and picks pockets and breaks locks and they try their best to survive. She hears sirens and screams and sobs and she wants to change it but she can’t, she can only watch it happen, helpless.

Thump.

She is eighteen and still homeless and her first real boyfriend aged out of the system and has no where to go just like her and he is sweet and sunshine. And when they get caught stealing and the police arrest him she swears when he gets out she is going to make him a new identity and let him start over somewhere else.

Thump.

She is eighteen and on her own again and she goes to a college bar and wins a laptop in a bet off a drunk student and she has hope now that maybe she can change things. She can take control of her life. She can fight back against the system that doesn’t work for so many people, that left her alone in this world. She tries again to find her parents.

Thump.

She is nineteen and she’s saved enough money to buy a van so she takes her laptop and her van and she leaves the entire state of New York behind. She moves through DC, stops by Cincinnati, stays in Chicago for a while. She works at diners and does odd jobs on her computer with varying degrees of legality. She is not running, she is just moving.

Thump.

She is twenty and her first real girlfriend is a Russian hacker who is charming and clever and as flighty as she is. They meet up in Denver and count cards in Vegas and drive though Portland and Seattle. They teach each other and they learn from each other and they are not permanent but they are something good for a while.

Thump.

She is twenty one and she cannot find her parents because something called SHIELD is hiding them from her. She tries to find SHIELD and instead a group of hackers finds her. And she is still angry even though she tries not to be and she is still lost no matter how many cities she lives in and she is more than a little screwed up but she has a bigger purpose now. She can change things, make a real difference in this world. This team may not be family, but they are something to be a part of, and maybe that’s enough. But she will still never stop looking.

Thump.

She is twenty two and she kisses Miles because he is lost and searching like she is and he understands what it's like to be angry and alone. And when he says that by giving people information they are giving them back the power that the system has stolen from them, she agrees with him. And she lives in her van and his apartment is terrible and they don’t have much but they have each other and they understand each other and that is worth protecting.

Thump.

She is twenty three and in Dallas when aliens fall from the sky and reign down on New York and bring the city to its knees again. It is terrifying and terrible and tragic but the Avengers are there and that is also very very cool and she knows just how right she was, there was a lot the government has been hiding.

Thump.

She is twenty four and a bag is thrown over her head in Los Angeles and her plan is working. She is inside their flying base and then shit happens and she thinks she is about to watch a Black man, a father, someone who just needed a break, get shot in the head, and he does, but he doesn’t die. She thinks maybe SHIELD isn’t so bad after all.

Thump.

She is twenty four and she thinks Ward is a tool but then she learns he has seen violence like her and he protects people and maybe he isn’t so bad either. She would have liked to have had a big brother who protected her growing up.

Thump.

She is twenty four and she is holding a gun but Quinn still has all the power. She runs.

Thump.

She is helpless and then Ward comes swooping in like a knight in black kevlar. And if she can only have one defining moment, it is this one. Because she doesn’t want to need to be saved ever again.

She hits the bag with a thump.

She will train and she will work and she will fight. And she will become an Agent. So that she wont have to run away anymore. So that _she_ can do the saving. It was no good pretending. No use trying to convince herself that maybe she wasn’t all the way in this. That she could still back out. No. She wanted this. Bad.

Thump.

She thinks this will break her.

Thump.

It doesn’t matter. She has to try.

* * *

**Post 1x04**

Skye, Fitz and Simmons all sit in the lab, huddled around Skye’s laptop and the desktop screens. She is showing them the new security software she’s working on and explaining what she’s doing, mostly to Fitz, who has more programing experience than Simmons and is more interested in learning. At some point Simmons’ phone rings.

“Be right back,” says Simmons quietly. They nod and continue working.

After some time, Simmons comes back into the lab looking slightly frazzled, putting her phone in her pocket with one hand and straightening out her ponytail with the other.

“You good?” Skye asks her, stopping what she is doing.

“Oh, yes,” Simmons answers. “Just my parents. Talking with them can get me a bit,” she makes a spastic gesture with her hand, “you know?”

Fitz answers at once, “Yes, I love my mother, but when she gets going, she does not stop!”

Skye just shrugs. “Not really.” She acts deliberately causal but doesn’t meet her eyes, choosing instead to look back at her computer screen. “I don’t have parents so… yeah…” She feels more than sees Fitz and Simmons exchanging a look.

“Oh, I’m-” Simmons starts to say, but Skye cuts her off. She really doesn’t want to hear an apology. She doesn’t want to make this a thing. “No, it’s, whatever,” she says dismissively. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Is that why you dropped out of high school?” Fitz blurts out.

“Oh Fitz!” Simmons scolds.

“No, it’s cool,” says Skye swiveling in her chair to face them now. “Yeah, I mean, foster care sucks, and the nuns at the orphanage were, whatever… so, I bailed.”

“How did you start hacking?” Simmons asks curiously.

“It just came naturally to me I guess.” Skye shrugs. “It’s easy to focus on. So I learned some things from people online. And then when the Rising Tide found me I picked up a couple tricks from them.”

“And now you’re using those tricks to build up SHIELD security,” Fitz points out.

Skye smirks. “Yeah, well SHIELD security is tragic. I can’t work here and let that stand. That’s just, shameful.”

“It's some of the best in the world. If not the best,” defends Simmons. On principle, Skye assumes.

“Tragic,” she repeats cockily. “I mean it's not as bad as the Pentagon or like oh God, the NSA, but, still.”

“I don’t want to know,” Simmons says. “I don’t want to know.”

Skye smiles broadly at her. “Yes you do.”

Simmons smiles a little sheepishly. “Curiosity is only natural,” she defends. “It's a part of the scientific process.”

“Yeah,” agrees Skye. “Exactly, it was totally for science, not on a bet.”

“Well the science is brilliant. Show her what you did there,” says Fitz. “With the…” he repeats back what she showed him earlier. “Brilliant, right,” he says to Simmons when she is done explaining.

Simmons smiles admiringly at Skye and fondly at Fitz. “Very.”

Skye feels herself filling up with warmth for these two nerds. This is different than the Rising Tide. It’s more similar to some of the better foster homes she’s been in, when the foster siblings were nice. But it’s different than that too. She’s never felt so connected to people so quickly. And she has a feeling this is something special. Something worth holding on to. She doesn’t want to screw this up.

* * *

**Post 1x05**

_Two years ago_

The door to her van opens suddenly. Her hazy mind vaguely realizes that’s not good. But it’s nothing bad. Just Miles. Wait, what?

“Miles? What?”

Skye is confused. She can’t remember, but she’s pretty sure they weren’t in the same state, last she checked. Which, admittedly might have been a while ago. She hasn’t really been keeping track of time. Miles crouches over her. She blinks. Her vision is blurry and her brain feels foggy. She wonders if she is hallucinating him.

“No ones heard from you in a while,” Miles explains. “I got worried.” Oh, Skye thinks, how strange.

“Mm fine,” she mumbled, “Just…little cold.”

“A little cold?” Miles says incredulously, “Skye, you don’t look so good.”

“Thanks,” Skye manages sarcastically.

“I’m serious,” says Miles, putting a hand to her forehead. “You’re burning up. Have you taken your temperature?” She says nothing, and he correctly interprets this as a no. “Do you even own a thermometer?” He again correctly takes her silence as a no. “Crap. I’ll be right back. Shit. Don’t, don’t die while I’m gone.” She hears the door slam shut and passes out a few moments later.

“Skye. Skye!”

She blinks awake blearily. A thermometer is shoved into her mouth.

“105. Shit. Skye, this isn’t good. How long have you been like this?”

She doesn’t bother to answer, she has no idea, time has blurred together.

“You should go to a hospital,” says Miles, frowning at her. That sparks some life back into her.

“Can’t. Don’t exist,” she manages.

Miles sighs impatiently, “We can forge something. I’ll figure it out.”

“No,” says Skye as firmly as she can.

“Skye, don’t be stupid-”

“I don’t like hospitals,” Skye admits. “Please.” She knows she sounds as pathetic as she must look. She hopes he will take pity on her. Her vision is going black and she fades away.

She wakes up in a hospital. She leaves as soon as she can stand.

“We shouldn’t have to do that,” Miles grumbles annoyed when they are back in a motel after. “We shouldn’t have to hack things and fake documents just to get you medical treatment.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that,” snaps Skye angrily.

Miles looks at her incredulously, “Are you, mad at me?”

“I told you I don’t like hospitals.”

“Skye, you could have died!” He shouts at her.

She rolls her eyes. “Oh don’t be so dramatic!”

“Me, dramatic! You are so, infuriating. And stubborn! And reckless! Why can’t you just let me help you!”

“I don’t need you to save me!” Skye snaps, shouting back. “I’ve been doing that just fine my entire life.”

“Fine, go back to being alone then. Do everything on your own like you clearly want. See if I care.” Miles glares at her, and turns to leave.

Skye feels a jolt of panic. “Wait. Don’t go. I’m sorry. I was…I was scared.”

“So was I,” Miles says cooly.

“I’m sorry,” Skye repeats, pleading, “I just, I freaked out. I spent some time at hospitals as a kid.”

Miles softens, “Foster parents?”

Skye shrugs not wanting to talk about it. “Sometimes.” She adds, “I had a bad allergic reaction once. They sent me back to St. Agnes after. It’s one of my earliest memories. Being there alone.”

“Well, you’re not alone anymore…” He takes her hand and pulls her close into an embrace. She soaks up all of the comfort that he has to offer before they separate. “The health care system in this country is absolute shit though,” says Miles when they part.

Skye snorts, “What do you want to do, hack your way to a better one?”

“Maybe,” says Miles seriously. “There must be some dirty politicians we can expose. Freedom of information. People have a right to know who they’re voting for, right.” Skye grins because yeah, okay, that sounds like just the kind of fun she could use.

Now

Skye lies down in her bunk, with her new bracelet, and she thinks about Miles. She thought he was like her, but he wasn’t. She thought he wanted to help people. She thought he wanted to empower them. But it was all a lie. All he really cared about was himself, and what he wanted. Which apparently, was money and her.

_“I don’t even know what I’m looking for. For a long time I thought it was you.”_

Was she supposed to find that romantic? She finds it frustrating. Frustrating and annoying. Did he really think she would ever be okay with what he did? Did he not know her at all? And then he has the audacity to put his shit on her, and act like he was doing it _for_ her when it was really just for himself.

He said that she is different now and she can only hope this is true. Skye has never wanted to be who she was.

(Not Mary not Sue not helpless not weak not unwanted.)

She never wants to be okay with who she is if that means she never tries to better.

(Not a criminal not a liar not a cheat)

And she sure as shit doesn’t want to be the girl who looked at him and believed his lies and thought that they understood each other.

She thinks it's better this way, severing ties completely. This one last part of her old life, gone. And she can go forward without anything holding her back. She is training to be a SHIELD agent. She is a part of this team now. She will earn their trust and prove herself and hopefully they will let her stick around. If they didn’t kick her out for this, maybe there is still a chance this could work out.

And with Coulson helping her look for her parents, maybe there was a chance that could work out too. She’s not really expecting it to end happily ever after, (she still has hope and she wishes she didn’t) but after all this time looking for them, she wants to know what the hell happened. She has imagined every possible horrible situation. And the truth can’t be worse than what she’s imagined.

* * *

**Post 1x06**

Jemma jumps out of a plane and Skye thinks her heart stops beating for a moment. She is worse than useless, she is helpless to stop it. Jemma survives by some miracle of timing and science and Ward and Skye pulls her into her arms. She can’t lose her. Jemma almost dies and it feels like the ending of something and the beginning of something all at once.

Skye can’t sleep.

She works on the software for one of the security protocols she is developing. Let’s the puzzle of the code draw her attention and pull her focus. She isn’t sure how much time has passed when there is a very soft tapping on her door. It slides open silently and a head pops in. Jemma.

“Sorry, I, noticed your light was on…” Jemma whispered.

“Can’t sleep either?” Skye replied, keeping her voice low too, so as not to wake the others.

“Do you mind if I?” Jemma gestures to come inside.

“Nope.” Skye closes her laptop, moves it aside, and pats the bed next to her. Jemma closes the door behind her and sits down next to Skye, leaning against the wall with her knees pulled up to her chest. “Do you want to talk about it?” Skye asks softly. “Must have been scary.”

“I think I’m still shaking.” Jemma admits. “Residual adrenaline. A spike in hormone releases. A chemical reaction. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“You just need some time to level out.”

“Yes. Exactly. Then I’ll be just fine.” Jemma nods a little, as if to convince herself. “What's that?” She says suddenly. Skye looks and Jemma is gesturing to the hula girl bobble doll that that Skye stuck to the window sill. “I mean, I know what it is, obviously, I just meant, it’s the only thing in here that you brought that was, personal, I noticed. Not that I was looking, or that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“Jemma.” Skye cuts off Jemma’s rambling. “It’s okay. It’s, um, someone gave it to me. When I was a kid. Um I was scared, and, she gave it to me to help me be brave. To remember that I’m not alone.”

“That’s nice.” Jemma says smiling softly.

“Yeah.” Skye’s thoughts wander for a moment, and then she pulls them back to Jemma. “You know, I think your really brave. Insane, but brave.”

Jemma shakes her head in disagreement. “It wasn’t like that, really. It was logical.”

Skye raises an eyebrow, “Oh yeah, jumping out of a plane without a parachute, very logical,” she says sarcastically.

“It was my life or the rest of you…”

Skye understands. “And you would sacrifice yourself for us.”

“Yes,” says Jemma without hesitation.

Skye nudges her with her shoulder. “That doesn’t sound logical. Sounds like you’re a hero.”

Jemma smiles at her, then looks away. “You can go back to what you were doing. And I’ll just, sit, if you don’t mind?”

“Not at all.”

Jemma falls asleep after twenty minutes.

Skye gently lowers her so that she is lying down on the bed instead of leaning on the wall and then pulls the cover over her. There isn’t room for two of them with her lying down so Skye quietly leaves the room with her laptop. She goes to one of the cars, sliding in the back seat and going back to work knowing she won’t be able to fall asleep.

* * *

**1x07**

_Eight years ago_

Skye waits until night when they are sleeping. Then she packs her bag efficiently and silently. She makes the bed and straightens up the room so that it will be like she was never here. Then she sneaks into Billy’s room and leaves a paper crane on his bedside table. She leaves nothing else behind. She takes a spare blanket and just enough money for the subway. Then she makes her way back to Hell’s Kitchen. Back to St. Agnes for one last time.

Skye sneaks back into the orphanage with the ease of years of practice and then creeps into Matt’s room as quietly as she can. She uses her flashlight, as it won’t disturb him since he can’t see it. She just needs to get her sd card from its hiding spot and then she can leave this godforsaken place and never come back.

“What the hell?”

Shit. Skye woke him up. Of course she did. (If she is honest with herself, she knew she would. She wanted to say goodbye.)

“Skye?” says Matt, confused. “What are you doing here? What happened? Are you okay?”

“I'm fine.”

He frowns at her. “I can tell when you’re lying, remember. What are you doing in my room in the middle of the night? When did you even get back?”

“I just came to get something,” says Skye, not bothering to answer the second question.

“You hid something in my room?” says Matt, sounding slightly amused now.

“Safer than keeping it on me. Anyway, I just came to get it. I’ll, see you later.”

“You’re leaving, aren’t you, for good,” says Matt, all trace of humor gone. “You’re running away.” He sounds disapproving and disappointed in her, and it annoys her.

“Oh don’t get all high and mighty,” she snaps, struggling to keep her voice low so as not to wake the nuns. “You don’t know what it’s like. You were always here. And here sucks but at least it’s not…” She trails off, not wanting to finish the sentence. He already knows anyway.

“Skye, what happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

He frowns and tilts his head the way he does when he is concentrating, and then, “Those bruises, did you do that, or did they?”

“It’s still creepy that you can tell that,” Skye says, with as much humor as she can muster.

“Stop deflecting.”

Skye rolls her eyes at him hoping he can sense it so that he will know her annoyance. “You’re not my therapist. And you’re not a lawyer yet either.”

“If you told someone-”

“Like you told someone about Stick.” It’s a low blow, but he is pushing, and he knows it.

“Thats not the same,” Matt says at once.

“Whatever.”

“They could help you-”

“They haven’t helped me!” Skye whisper shouts at him. “They haven’t helped me once in sixteen years. Not the shrinks or the doctors, not the social workers, not the nuns, no one. The system doesn’t help people, Matty. They don’t care. You should know that.”

Matt frowns. “I know,” he admits.

“It wasn’t even like that this time,” Skye reveals. “She was, she was nice.”

“Then why?”

Skye thinks, because I cause too much trouble and because I can’t control myself and she couldn’t keep me and I’m no good. Skye doesn’t say this. She just shrugs. “Just wasn’t a good fit.”

“Skye…” There was sympathy in his voice. She hates that.

“I just, I’m done. I’m not doing it anymore. I can’t get attached. I’m better off on my own.”

“Do you really believe that?” he asks her quietly.

“What do you care, you spend all your time at college anyway.”

It’s true. Matt is going to school in the city, and he only returns to church and to help out on weekends. Matt stayed here without having ever been fostered, other than Stick, and this plus his devout and sincere Catholicism and genuine helpfulness made the nuns have a soft spot for him. It also meant that from the time she befriend him at eight years old, he was one of the most stable things in her life.

“If you stay in school, you could go to college too,” Matt was saying.

Skye snorts at this. “Yeah right.” School was out of the question now. But she sucked at school anyway. That high school diploma looked less and less attainable the older she got and the more different schools she ended up at and the further behind she fell. It was hard to care about any of that.

“You’re a genius with computers,” he says sincerely. “You could be a computer programer.”

“No, I can’t.”

“You could.”

“I don’t want to! I don’t want…” She trails off. “I just wanted a family,” Skye says, her voice vulnerable and small in a way that she hates.

“I know,” Matt says gently. He is always gentle with her.

She confesses something to him that has been on her mind for a while now. For years really. “Maybe I’m just, not one of those people that gets to have that.”

“Skye-”

She can’t handle the sympathy in his voice. She deflects again. “You had your dad. Thats why you’re not… it’s because you had him. Because he loved you. That’s why you’ll be okay. Even through everything else.”

“You’re going to be okay too.” 

Skye thinks he actually believes this. Matt is an idealist, at his heart. He may have a cynical side and an angry one, but he believes in people. He believes things will work out. She tries to believe this too, but sometimes it’s hard.

“Just, be safe,” Matt says, sounding resigned.

“I’ll be fine. I'm resourceful.”

“Yeah, I know…”

“Well, I guess this is it.” This was goodbye to the one person who she knew actually valued having her around.

“Goodbye, Skye,” says Matt, solemnly. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

She hopes so too.

“Goodbye, Matty.”

Now

The Hub. It is a physical manifestation of‘The System’.

It makes Skye’s skin itch and anxiety creep in just standing outside, looking up at the imposing building that seems to glare down at them. FitzSimmons are practically bursting with excitement at the prospect of new tech to play with. Ward is as stoic and uptight as ever. Coulson is focused. May is watching…her. Observing. Always observing. Maybe they have that in common. Skye straightens up. She feels small. She arms herself with sarcasm and bravado and goes inside.

Inside the belly of the beast is…A shit ton of men in suits. The same suit? A bunch of busy worker bees all doing what the queen tells them. Do they have a single brain too?

It’s impressive. She can’t deny that. All these people, all with a role to play, all working for something greater than themselves…It actually sounds nice, when she thinks about it like that… But the Hub is also like a living breathing machine. Finely tuned so that everyone has a part to play and no single part is aware of what any other part is doing. Designed to keep everyone in the dark.

The Hub is the perfect place to keep secrets.

Ward and Fitz get a mission but something doesn’t feel right about it. Skye learned long ago to trust that feeling.

Coulson keeps telling her to trust the system, but she doesn’t think he appreciates the enormity of what he is asking her to do. Maybe the system worked for him, but she knew all to well how broken it really was. Every system that was designed to ‘help’ her had failed. She had to help herself. The system didn’t care about the individual. It just wanted them out of the way and not causing trouble. The system lost people. It was going to lose Ward and Fitz. She has to find them.

Her and Jemma work together and it doesn’t go entirely to plan (they really need to come up with some sort of _something_ if Jemma needed to bail out because that was terrible) but they get in.

Skye is in their servers and then, suddenly, everything she has been looking for her whole life is right there in front of her.

This is it. Her parents. Answers. Where she came from. Who she is.

Twenty four years leading up to this moment.

She hesitates, pulled away from her original task.

But…there isn’t enough time. She needs to find Ward and Fitz.

And. Shit. No extraction team?

They get the intel and May is probably pissed, it was hard to tell, but she helps them anyway. And then Coulson joins in and they are off. And Ward and Fitz are found safe.

So maybe Skye doesn’t have to trust the system. Maybe she just has to trust her team. (Maybe what she is looking for is closer than she realized.)

* * *

**Post 1x07**

After Ward and Fitz have returned and they are all back on the Bus and everything has settled down, Skye approaches Jemma where she is alone in the lab.

“So, here’s what I’m thinking,” she says casually sitting in the chair next to where Jemma is standing. “We need a safe word.”

“Excuse me,” Jemma squeaks out.

Skye smiles. She was so easy to mess with. “You know, like if we get in trouble. More, what did you call it, ‘bad girl shenanigans’. Because you’re a terrible liar.”

“I panicked!”

“Clearly. I don’t know what was worse, when you shot him, or when you said ‘I like men that are about my height but heavier than me.’” Skye makes a face as she hears herself say it out loud. “No, I take it back, _that_ , that was definitely worse.”

“It’s hard to flirt under pressure!” Jemma defends.

“You didn’t have to flirt at all!” Skye points out.

“Well I don’t know! I’m new to this.”

Which, Skye suddenly finds it very odd that Jemma is allowed to be on a field team in a spy agency without anyone ever teaching her how to lie. Of course, Fitz was asked to go on a high risk field op with zero training, so clearly big SHIELD didn’t really have a whole lot of concern for its agents. She shakes off the thought and refocus on the task at hand.

“Well, I’ll teach you,” she states. “So, we start with a safe word. Obviously it can’t be one you actually use already.”

“I, I-”

Skye smiles at her stuttering but takes pity on her and continues. “And you have to be able to bring it up causal conversation. But, like, obvious enough that I know you wouldn’t actually bring it up in casual conversation.”

“Mitochondria?” says Jemma.

“The power house of the cell,” Skye states flatly.

“Oh it is much more than that!” Jemma tells her passionately. Skye doesn’t bother to explain. She just sighs at her, exasperated. “Nothing sciencey.”

“Okay, okay.” Jemma says. “Perthshire? I’ve always thought it would be a beautiful place to live.”

“Um, that could actually come up in conversation though. Something more, out there.”

“Manscaping.” Jemma exclaims suddenly.

Skye blinks. “Man..oh..kay.. Manscaping.”

“What, is that bad?” Jemma says sincerely.

Skye can’t. She bites back a smile and just shakes her head. “No, it’s, yeah, it’s a fine word,” she manages to get out.

Jemma beams at her.

* * *

**1x09**

Hannah Hutchins thinks God is punishing her. Skye just wants to help her.

“She’s not dangerous,” Skye tells Coulson. “Someone with that much empathy being responsible for that much loss of life, she’s devastated.”

Hannah sits in the cell, afraid and alone. And Skye wants to help her, but she can’t. That seems to be a pattern with her.

“Are you okay?” Skye asks her after it is all over, hugging her inside an old empty barn. “It’s gone. It’s over.”

Hannah doesn’t say much, and Skye leads her into her bunk so she can sleep.

“Skye, thank you,” Hannah says suddenly from where she sits on her bed.

Skye gives her a comforting smile and says, “It was nothing.” May’s the one who saved her, after all.

“You’ve been kind to me.” Hannah tells her sincerely, “I, I was sacred and…upset…but you, thank you.”

“I can’t imagine what you’ve been though, but you’re safe now. Try and get some rest.” Skye pulls the covers over her gently, the way she used to do for some of the younger foster siblings and kids in the orphanage.

Hannah must have been so terrified, she thinks. Thinking she had powers she couldn’t control. Blaming herself for her friend’s death. And then they locked her up like a werewolf on full moon or something. But at least it worked out in the end. Because of May.

Skye had caught a glimpse of the look on Mays face in that barn. It was a lot of feelings for someone who normally doesn’t show any. And Skye is starting to see how just wrong she was about May. She still doesn’t know what exactly her deal is, but she thinks she doesn’t need to know. May is someone who cares a lot about people, and that is enough for Skye.

* * *

**Post 1x09**

It is after the incident with Hannah and after an… incident…with fake snow that they have agreed to no more pranking. Instead they call a truce and Skye, Fitz, and Jemma all plan to try and get the rest of the team in on their movie nights.

“Movie night!” Skye shouts joyfully through the plane while she heads to the cockpit where she knows she will find May. Skye opens the door quietly and as expected, May is in the pilots seat. “Planning your next prank?” Skye jokes. May says nothing but Skye swears she can see her mouth twitch in a smile.

“Hey, so we’re gonna watch a movie. Want to join us?” May doesn’t answer but as Skye leaves she can hear her start to get up and follow her. Skye smiles.

They’ve set up a projector in the common area of the Bus and moved comfortable squashy chairs around the couch. Skye walks in to see Fitz looking uncomfortably at an oblivious Jemma who was sitting on the couch flipping through possible movie titles. He finally sits on the opposite side of the couch looking torn between trying to put as much distance between them and get as close to her as possible. Skye rolls her eyes and gives him a knowing look that he ignores. Skye sits between them picking up a bowl of popcorn.

May pointedly sat in her own chair, eyes shifting from Fitz and Simmons to Coulson on his own chair and skipping over Ward completely. But Ward is tracking May’s movements. Skye blinks in surprise. Okay. That was…Okay, when Ward said he didn’t want to talk he really meant he didn’t want to _talk_. She shakes off the thought.

“So, what are we watching?”

They all go back and forth on what movie to watch until Skye spots a favorite of hers.

“Oh what about Mulan,” she says excitedly.

“A Disney movie?” Scoffs Ward.

Skye glares at him playfully. “Excuse you, Mulan is a cinematic classic and she’s a badass.” 

“I like it,” states May, and that is that.

While Mulan’s chickens go running Skye nudges Fitz next to her.

“Trade you a Milky Way for a Red Vine,” she whispers. Candy changes hands.

A little way into the movie Skye has a sudden thought. “You know, she kind of sounds like you, May.” May glares at her. Skye grins. This is nice, she thinks. (This must be what having a family is like.) She doesn’t want this to change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: ‘Search and Destroy’, everything changes, aka the rest of s1


	2. Search and Destroy (1x12 -1x22)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: homelessness, mention drug overdose, thoughts about death, implied and referenced child abuse, brief discussion of domestic abuse, threatened/attempted sexual assault (non-consensual kissing) during 1x19 flashback
> 
> I've now added some line breaks and also edited some typos in ch 1 because apparently Im really bad a punctuating dialogue lol  
> Ok are we ready for six and half seasons of Daisy's trauma? Hope you enjoy...

**Search and Destroy**  
Sanders Bohlke  
 _I was so mad at the coming of the day_  
 _I will leave the monsters all at bay_  
 _They buried their dead with the flowers in the field_  
 _With wounds so deep they never healed_

**1x12**

_The couple stands over the bed, gazing adoringly at the little girl lying there, staring back up at them. The man wraps his arms around the woman._

_“She’s so beautiful,” says the mother._

_“Perfect,” states the father. He tears his eyes away from their daughter to look at his wife. Her eyes are full of a deep kind of sadness he will never understand. “Whats wrong?” he asks._

_She shakes her head. “Nothing. This is perfect.”_

_“But?” he presses._

_“But there is a lot of evil in the world.” Her eyes flash and then she blinks away the darkness. “I just don’t want anything to happen to her.”_

_“I’ll always protect her,” he promises. He means it with his whole heart._

Skye used to dream about her parents.

She used to imagine them together. She imagined happy smiles and gentle embraces.

Her parents are dead.

She always knew they might be. But she didn’t think…

Her parents are dead.

And she is an 084. She was put in foster care for her protection. She was found in China. She is Chinese. Her parents are dead. The entire village died. Protecting her.

Skye doesn’t know why it happened, but she knows her search is over. Her lifelong quest for answers and this is were it all ended. These are all the answers she has. (Her parents are dead. Of course they are. She is an orphan.) She only wishes that Coulson and May had managed to find out her name. Or her parents’ names. But she knows this now: her parents did not abandon her. Not all of those families that sent her back didn’t want her. SHIELD was protecting her. People died for her.

Maybe that means something.

Maybe she will make it mean something.

Skye doesn’t know their names. Dozens of people. Gone. Caught in the cross fire. Because of her. And she doesn’t even know their names. Only Agent Avery. The woman who saved her. Who protected her. Who died for her. She traces her name on the Wall of Valor. All this history. And she is a part of it after all. But she never wanted it _this_.

It doesn’t make sense.

To find out that she hadn’t been abandoned but had been protected, by SHIELD, changed things. It meant that maybe the problem with all those families hadn’t actually been her, after all. That maybe some of them wanted her too…And she is grateful. So, so grateful.

But still, Skye feels heavy with a new weight. Dozens of weights. Their lives. Gone. And she is here. Why is she here when they are gone? It doesn’t make sense. She shouldn’t be here. Not unless it is for a reason. She has to make it worth it. She has a responsibility to them now.

She will start by finding Quinn.

* * *

**1x13**

_Six years ago_

Skye and Ty head back to where they hang out with some other teens. One of the places they knew they wouldn’t get picked up by cops. There is a group gathered there already, forming a semi-circle around the wall of an empty building.

Skye’s heart sinks. Her and Ty look at each other sadly and make their way over.

“Who?”

“Ryan.”

“What happened?”

“Overdose.”

They stop, taking in the vigil. Unlit candle stumps. An old paper back book. A jacket that someone was sure to take. A lighter. A pencil drawing of his face, smiling at them. And that was it.

There were no funerals for people like them. There was no one to claim their bodies. No grave on which to leave flowers. They were just, gone. Here one day, and lost the next. Like they never existed at all.

Skye imagines, for a moment, what it would be like to die. What Ryan must have felt. If he knew it was happening at all. If he was scared. If he had regrets. She wants suddenly to leave some mark on the world. To carve her name on the decaying wall of this abandoned warehouse and shout that she was _here_. Only, she doesn’t know her name.

She looks away from the vigil to the buildings themselves. To the streets. To the skyscrapers and the skyline. There was history here. In these buildings, in these walls. Old and pained and repeating history. And they passed through. Their memorials to each other as temporary and fleeing as their lives had been. What would it be like, Skye wonders, to be a part of something permanent? To be a part of the history written about in the books. To actually exist in this world.

Ty leans over and kisses her on the forehead, pulling her back from where she was lost inside her head. Then he squeezes her hand, both reassuring her and seeking reassurance. Their fingers are laced together. He is here. So is she. She squeezes back.

Skye doesn’t know how long they will last. They don’t even know where they will be sleeping next week, let alone where they will be in some abstract future. But they have each other right now, and that’s not nothing. He would care at least, if she was gone. He would notice.

“Do you think, we’ll ever be more than this?” she asks him quietly as they step back from the others. He moves his arm so that it’s resting across her shoulders, her right hand still intertwined with his left, now crossed over her chest.

“I think someday you’re going to do something that will blow everyone away.”

Skye scoffs quietly. “Yeah, right.”

“And when you do,” he continues undeterred, “we’ll all be there with you, cheering you on.”

She knows he means it. Ty is sincere like that. She’s known it since she first met him, and she’s always been good at reading people. That’s what keeps her alive, after all. What would it be like, she wonders, to lose that. What would it be like to die?

She glances back at the vigil. “If something happens to me, will you leave flowers?”

“Yeah,” says Ty, “but nothing is gonna happen to you.” He’s being hopeful, but he’s not sure. She knows it. They are never sure.

Now

Quinn was going to get away. She couldn’t let him get away.

She takes the ICER from Fitz. Shoots the guard. She has finally stopped shouting ‘bang’ when she pulls the trigger.

She can do this. She has to stop him. All those lives. She has to make it worth it.

Mike?

“What the hell did you do to him?”

Bang.

She read him wrong.

That’s her only coherent thought after pain explodes in her stomach. She doesn’t understand. Her hand goes to the wound automatically. She looks down. Her hand is covered in blood. She looks back up at him, confused.

She read him wrong.

He walks up to her. Pulls her close, like he is embracing her. A second bang. More pain. And then she falls to the ground. Helpless.

Her vision goes blurry.

But, she’s still alive…somehow…

…she chokes out… “help”…

…door…the door…

…she crawls…

…maybe Coulson would find her…before…keep breathing…

…just keep breathing…

...she reaches up her hand…

… opens the door…

… “help _”_ … “help _”_ … “help”…

…maybe she could see them again before…she was running out…of time…who knew…dying… _hurt_ …so much…

…but maybe the team…would leave flowers…on her grave…

* * *

**Post 1x14**

_A woman in a Hawaiian skirt smiles at her. Something is beeping steadily in the background._

_“What have we got.”_

_“Patient 084.”_

_“Jane Doe?”_

_The beeping stops and turns into one solid constant tone._

_“Mary-Sue.”_

_The beeping starts back up again._

_“Mary-Sue, Mary-Sue you’re going to be okay.”_

_She can’t speak. She can’t breathe. A needle is injected into her thigh._

_“No family?”_

_A man carrying a palm leaf fans her._

_“No. She’s going back to the orphanage. The one run by the church.”_

_“It’s a magical place.”_

_“Mary, can you tell us what happened?”_

_Her arm is burning._

_“I fell.”_

_A girl is laughing hysterically. Or maybe crying._

_“Be careful of the Devil.”_

_“Mary, how did you get this? Did your parents do this to you?”_

_She shakes, cold but somehow still feverish._

_“They’re not my parents.”_

_A shadowy figure sits next to her. It whispers in her ear._

_“Skye, Skye, you have to wake up, okay. We’re all worried about you.”_

_The shadowy figure turns into a tiger pacing back and forth, guarding the door._

_The tiger turns into a bear._

_“Come back, come back, come back.”_

_The bear turns into a monkey, into an octopus, into a dog. The dog licks her face._

_“You’ve got to fight.”_

When Skye wakes up, she doesn’t remember the dream. She doesn’t remember much of anything. (She remembers being very young and waking up in the hospital, alone.) She remembers Quinn, a lot of pain, and then, nothing. Skye looks around. She is on the Bus. Jemma rushes towards her. (She is not alone anymore.)

“Skye, you’re awake again, good. How are you feeling?”

Skye blinks slowly. Her body feels like it’s on fire. “What happened?” Her throat is sore and her voice is hoarse and Jemma quickly hands her a cup of water with a straw that she sips from slowly.

“You were hurt, badly. Do you remember?” Jemma asks her as she puts her hand on Skye’s shoulder and keeps her from sitting up.

“I, Quinn. He, he shot me…How did I, I thought I was dead for sure.”

Jemma frowns. “You almost were. Your heart stopped multiple times.”

“Oh.”

“We, to save you, we had to inject you with an experimental drug. One that was used to bring Coulson back.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a lot to process, I know.” Jemma looks a little guilty at that. But if it meant surviving, then (presumably) non-addictive drugs were pretty low on Skye’s list of concerns.

“No, I, I’m alive. That’s, thank you,” she says sincerely.

“We were all, very worried about you, Skye. Please don’t scare us like that again.” Jemma looks like she is about to cry.

Now it’s Skye’s turn to feel guilty. She was so stupid to go in there alone. She was so, so fixated on getting Quinn, on making it right, that she didn’t stop to think. “I shouldn’t have gone in alone. I was so stupid. I just, I wanted to…”

“No, the blame is with Quinn,” Jemma reassures her.

“What, what happened to him?” Skye’s voice shakes slightly as she asks. Jemma puts her hand on her arm comfortingly.

“He’s locked up. He can’t hurt you again. And he’s going to be in quite a bit of pain for I hope a long while,” she adds darkly.

Skye’s brow furrows in confusion. “What happened?”

“They told us you weren’t going to make it…May…” And Jemma smiles a little at that, like maybe she enjoyed watching whatever it was that happen. But, May? May beat up Quinn for her?

“What? May hates me.”

“No, Skye, she really doesn’t…You, when you’re feeling better, you should watch the security footage. Of Quinn.”

Skye nods and doesn’t say anything else. Jemma gently brushes Skye’s hair off of her forehead.

“I’ll go get the others. They’ll be so glad to see you awake.”

By the time the others get there, Skye has fallen back asleep.

* * *

**1x16**

In the interrogation room, in her first act as an official SHIELD agent, Skye sets up the device and goes over everything she needs to with Agent Triplett so that he will be able to go on the double blind mission to find the Clairvoyant.

“Okay,” Skye says when she is done. “You’re good to go Agent Triplett.”

“Call me Trip,” he says with a bright smile.

Skye smiles back. “Well, it’s nice to officially meet you, Trip. I heard you helped Simmons when I… So thank you,” she says sincerely.

Trip shrugs. “It was nothing. Agent Simmons did all the heavy lifting.”

“Still.”

“You two are close?” Trip asks thoughtfully.

Skye nods. “Like family…” Her voice trials off, a little insecurely. Well, she thought they were like family anyway. And they _had_ all just gone to insane lengths just to try and save her. She’s never even _imagined_ anyone caring about her that much that they flew across the country and infiltrated a secure base just on the _hope_ that an experimental drug might save her. Yeah, family…

“They feel the same way,” says Trip both gently and confidently.

Skye feels a little startled that he can just see her so clearly, but she smiles gratefully at his observation all the same.

“Well, I’m lucky,” she says truthfully.

* * *

**1x17**

Hyrda.

Fuck.

Hydra.

It was 2014 and they were fighting Nazis…

Skye looks down at her badge. The badge that said she was a SHIELD agent. The badge that said she was finally a part of something. The badge that she said she had somewhere to belong and some purpose to fulfill. That said that she finally had the chance to actually protect people.

It was worthless.

It was all gone.

She gets to work.

Skye sets about erasing the identities of her team. Her family. And she can’t shake the incredible wrongness of it. The feeling that it shouldn’t be like this.

But she does it anyway.

Her own identity she had erased a long time ago. Well, her legal identification anyway, as all of her records never made it online. It makes sense, now that she knows. If people were looking for her and SHIELD wanted to protect her, having a trail of what home she was in at any given time would defeat the purpose of moving her so much. And a record of the homes she had stayed at would put those families in danger. Her caseworker would have gotten rid of all the records.

All this means that it is a surprise when her program does return results for one Mary-Sue Poots. And then she is looking right at it.

It’s her full unredacted file that she didn’t even know existed. (But of course she should have, SHIELD would have wanted to keep tabs on the 084). It’s all right there in front of her. Starting with places she stayed when she was too young to even remember. Apparently they didn’t erase the records, they just sent them to SHIELD. And thanks to the breach in SHIELD servers for the info dump, it was all right there. Skye quickly pulls it from the internet and downloads it to a flash drive before erasing it completely. She will deal with that later.

* * *

**1x19**

_Six years ago_

Skye steps into the alley and spots the man she is meeting. She really, really wishes she had pushed to have this drop somewhere else. Somewhere more public with lots of people and multiple exits. And maybe she should have let someone come with her too, anyone, but she couldn’t stand the thought of someone else getting caught in her shit. So now she is voluntarily in a shitty alleyway alone meeting with a guy who is selling her a fake ID.

This whole thing is sketchy as fuck and it will take all of the money she has but she is just desperate enough to go through with it. If she could make the ID herself she would, but even though she can hack into the license bureau and other government protected data streams on a public computer and make herself a new identity, she doesn’t have the equipment to make a physical ID. She needs money for the equipment and she doesn’t have money. She could steal it but she doesn’t want to do that anymore so she needs a job. But to get a job she needs an ID.

And that is how Skye finds herself in an alley meeting with a guy and carrying a wad of cash.

He shows her the ID. She reaches for it and he pulls his hand back quickly, raising his eyebrows expectantly. She hands him the cash. He starts to count it.

“You’re short,” he says. He is lying. They both know it.

“Like hell I am,” Skye says angrily.

“You’re short.”

“Look, that’s all I have,” she tries. He puts the ID in his pocket pointedly. Then he grabs her arm, dragging her closer.

“Well, I guess you’ll just have to pay me another way.” He grins creepily at her, looking her up and down.

Fuck. Fuck. Shit. Her heart is pounding. Her stomach churning. No. Fuck. No.

She raises her eyebrow, looking unaffected, letting him run his hand up and down her back. “It’s gonna be like that?” she says mildly.

“Yeah.”

She smiles coyly, and steps even closer to him and says, “You know, you could’ve just asked.”

“Really?” he says taken aback.

“Yeah.” And Skye leans up and kisses him. He kisses back hungrily. And then she bites down on his lip, hard. He jerks back and shouts, hands going towards his bleeding mouth, and she kicks him in the crotch. He bends over, groaning in pain, and she turns and runs.

She runs and runs and keeps running until she gets to a park. She goes into the bathroom, locks the stall door behind her, and leans back against it. Her breathing comes in short gasps. Her heart hammers in her chest. She counts to ten. Takes deep breaths. Then she leans over and throws up into the toilet. She sighs, flushes the toilet, and goes to the sink to wash out her mouth.

Skye looks at herself in the mirror. Pulls herself together. She reaches in her back pocket and pulls out the ID. It’s fine. She got what she needed.

She’s fine.

Now

Ward is Hydra.

Fuck.

He can’t know she knows. She can freak out later. If he finds her, she’s dead. If he finds out she knows, she’s dead. She pulls herself together. She leaves a message for the team. Remembers the penny suddenly, and puts it back above the door. Then she waits.

He is there, in front of her. Asking her where she went. Asking her for the truth. He can’t know. She has to keep it together.

“You scared me,” she states. It is easier to lie when she is telling the truth. She is glad he never taught her that so that he won’t know when she does it to him.

She smiles and steps closer to him. “I don’t exactly overanalyze. I just act impulsively and then I freak out after the fact.” And boy was she freaking out and regretting not overanalyzing now.

Skye leans up and kisses him. She swallows back the urge to bite, punch, kick, _something_. To defend herself. To run. Run. Run. If she runs she is dead. If she fights she is dead. So she kisses him. And then she smiles. Her heart hammers in her chest. She chokes back the urge to vomit.

Play along. Just keep playing along.

“The Bus is fueled up, ready to go.”

No. No. No. Every instinct is screaming at her to not go with him. To stall until Coulson gets back.

He takes her hand and leads her to the plane. She follows.

He gets the Bus in the air. The sight is all wrong. It should be May. She wants May back.

She looks out into the sun. Breathe. Just keep breathing.

“Fitz has the specs on it,” Ward explains the ‘plan’.

“The hard drive. You need me to decrypt the hard drive,” Skye says in realization as it all clicks. That was why he came back. Why he needed her. He thought he could trick her into decrypting it.

“The team does. And since its coupled to specific coordinates Agent Skye, you’re in charge.”

Skye is suddenly very glad that her trust issues ran deep enough that she had automatically implied it was tagged to a gps latitude and longitude when it was really altitude. Maybe it bought her some more time.

It strikes her then that Ward thinks she is really stupid. She’s seen the specs for that weapon, was Fitz just supposed to magically build a machine to vaporize people with materials they happened to have lying around? After waiting hours for them to return with the decrypted drive. Why would that be their plan? But this is good. It means Ward will underestimate her. It means she played her part well enough. He doesn’t know she knows. So maybe she can actually do this.

“Where to next?”

The plan forms quickly in her mind. A public place with witnesses and multiple exists. (He never taught her that either.) She says the first place that comes to mind. A diner in L.A. Back to where it all began.

And then when she has her laptop, she will have the power back.

She can build a backdoor, just in case something happened and she did have to decrypt the drive for him. He never did teach her how to hold up under torture. And to think she was being sardonic when she said it the first time.

There were a lot of things he never taught her. Probably on purpose, she realizes, so that she wouldn’t be a threat to him. But she has never needed SHIELD to teach her how to survive. And she doesn’t need anyone to teach her that Nazis are only worth fighting.

She can do this.

* * *

**1x20**

_Six years ago_

Skye looks nervously around. She’s never been in a shelter. She was a minor before and couldn’t risk getting sent back or arrested. Then she met Ty and they managed together. But they took Ty away and she didn’t want to do shit like that anymore so she left the others too. And she was alone again. Alone with a nice new fake ID and a job at a diner and maybe once she started in a couple days she could sleep there but for now she still had no place to sleep.

It was winter now. She had been trying to sleep in the subway but she couldn’t and it was so cold. She gave her blanket away a while ago and she was pretty sure that if she tried to sleep outside tonight she wouldn’t wake up in the morning. So she went to the shelter.

It was…okay…A lot of cots lined up next to each other. The woman on the bed next to her was sitting, frowning at her.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the woman states.

“I-” Skye starts at that. No, she erased her real identity.

“You’re just a kid. And alone,” the woman says sadly. Oh.

“None of us should be here,” Skye replies, looking around the room. Several people were coughing, hacking almost violently. Many had clearly been drinking. A lot of people, in crisis.

“I’m Skye,” she introduces herself to the woman.

“Taylor. Whats your story, Skye?”

Skye shrugs. “I was a foster kid. Dropped out of high school. Last week my boyfriend, he was arrested.”

“Did he..?” Taylor looks her over intently and Skye knows what she is thinking. She knows why a lot of people, especially the woman, are here.

“It wasn’t like that,” she reassures her quickly. Not with Ty, anyway. “We were on our own for a while, but it’s cold and…I always felt safer with him there.”

Taylor nods, “That’s important, safety.”

“Yeah.”

Taylor looks like she wants to say something so Skye just waits and lets her gather her thoughts.

After a moment Taylor tells her, “My ex almost killed me. I got a restraining order but it wasn’t enough. He found me. He kept finding me.”

“That must be terrifying,” Skye says sympathetically. She doesn’t want to even imagine how terrifying. If one of her worse experiences had decided to follow her. The fear and paranoia of not being able to escape.

“Even though its been months, I can still see his face,” Taylor admits, looking away and towards the wall. “Screaming at me that he loved me. That I had it all wrong. And if I just gave him another chance…” She looks back at Skye and gives a small smile, “But that’s over now.”

Skye nods at her, “I’m glad you got out. I know it’s…hard.” She’s seen it enough. She’s lived it enough. And even though she left, she gets that not everyone can.

Taylor agreed, “I’m just glad I survived.”

“And we’ll keep surviving,” says Skye firmly. “That’s the biggest f-you to all of them, right,” she adds.

Taylor nods back. “Right.”

Now

Skye works as slowly as she dares to decrypt the hard drive. It is not hard to sneak in a trojan horse that she will be able to access later. She knows the lines of code on a black screen are completely uninformative to them. But she doesn’t have time to build the entire program. They are suspicious enough already.

After she finishes Mike walks her into the holding cell.

He pauses at the doorway. “Skye, I never wanted…” He looks at her, and though she knows he was angry and resentful of SHIELD for failing Ace, a moment of solidarity passes between them now. She knows he never wanted to hurt her.

Skye just shakes her head. “It’s not your fault…Ace. We’ll save him.” She hopes they can save him. And maybe then they can save Mike too. Mike, who had his free will taken away and was being used and controlled by Nazis. God she hopes they can save them.

Mike frowns at her. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” He closes the door behind him and she is locked in.

Skye sits down in the chair. Back to where it all started. She remembers when she first met Ward. She thought he was a faceless government toolbag who would do whatever his boss told him without bothering to think for himself. She really should have trusted her instinct on that one.

But then he told her about his brother and god, was that a lie to? Was every single word, every single thing he said just another manipulation? To try and get her to trust him. To get her to like him and _want_ him. Because he had feelings for her. Her stomach churned.

In spite of everything that Skye has seen in her life, she never thought she would be in this position. She somehow never thought it would be her. She was so so stupid. How could she have been that stupid?

_“Skye!” he shouts at her as she runs desperate to escape, a cop on his either side, restraining him, his face unhinged._

Her hands clench. She will probably be adding that face to her nightmares. She wants it all to stop, stop, stop. She opens her hands. Squeezes them shut again.

_“You don’t understand. I’m not trying to hurt you!” he bellows running after her. A few seconds later and he doesn’t need to. He makes Deathlock do it for him. His hand is around her throat. She can’t breathe. Ward’s voice echos in her ears. I’m not trying to hurt you. Her vision goes black._

Skye sits and tries to breathe. Her veins are racing with adrenaline but there is nowhere for it to go and nothing she can do. She is trapped. The plane takes off.

_He was calm until she said he made her sick. Then he snapped. “Do you think this has been easy for me?” And like a switch, there was the real Ward, full of outrage and entitlement. And of course, it was all about him. Him. Him._

She feels small and vulnerable and helpless and she hates it. And she hates him for making her feel like that. And she doesn’t know, she doesn’t know. How does she get him out of her head? How does she get him off of her skin?

_“I will never, ever, give you what you want.”_

He is outside. He is just outside. He could come back at any moment. And she is powerless. What were they going to do with her? They didn’t need her anymore, now that they had the hard drive. Would Garret come and finish the job? Or would Ward…what would Ward do when he realized that she was never going to willingly be with him?

And god, she is alone. She is alone, and there is no one here to save her, and she can’t save herself, because the person who taught her how to do that, is the person she is up against. And what is she supposed to do now?

Survive. Survive and keep surviving. Like she always does.

_“I’m a survivor.” Ward spits out at her._

_“You are a serial killer,” Skye corrects, full of horror. You are the monster in other peoples’ nightmares._

The sight of Eric Koenig’s body is burned into her eyelids. And no amount of trauma Ward survived will ever justify that image to her.

_“He’s a murderer,” she says to Mike. Mike agrees._ _“Yes. He is. Are you?”_

No. She’s not. She’s not him. She will never be like him.

But maybe she should have let Mike kill him. If he hurt more people, was that on her now? Was Koenig? Ward could have knocked him out and still gotten her to come with him. But then he knew she would have found out the truth and they would be over. So maybe that blood was on her too.

The door opens suddenly. Her heart races even faster, but it’s not Ward or Deathlock. It’s Coulson. She rushes forward, and throws herself into his arms. And finally, finally, she is safe.

* * *

**Post 1x20**

“I’ve never been homeless before,” says Coulson after it is all over and they sit by the pool. 

“It’s not fun,” Skye replies.

It’s really not. But, better homeless than with _him_. And better homeless with her team, than anywhere else. She eats the candy Coulson hands her.

She survived. And she can’t process anything that happened just yet. Someday she knows she will. And she will be okay. But not here, not now. Right now, she is just going to sit at this pool, and eat some chocolate.

“Nice night.”

A little while later after Coulson has headed in for bed, Trip wanders back over to her and sits down next to her. He nods over to where Fitz and Simmons are sill sitting with their feet in the pool. “So those two?” he asks her.

Skye raises her eyebrow. “Really, that’s what you want to talk about?” Trip just smiles and lifts his shoulder in a partial shrug.

Skye nods. “Yeah, FitzSimmons. Sorry.” She knows that Trip had a thing for Jemma. She kinda thought Jemma may have liked him back, but, in the end, her and Fitz always seemed to orbit around each other.

Trip nods good natured, though she can tell he’s a little disappointed. “It’s all good,” he says. “I figured Fitz out pretty quick.”

Skye smiles at that. “He’s not subtle, is he. You know I’m pretty sure he had a crush on me when we first met? I mean, it only lasted like a week, and I’m like sure it was cause I’m the first girl he’s ever met who’s better at CS than he is. But, well, then Simmons jumped out of a plane without a parachute, and I think he figured it out.”

Trip looks a little incredulous at that. “Jumped out of a plane? You all have some stories.”

“Yeah…” Skye’s voice trails off because now she is thinking about Ward again and shit she doesn’t want to be thinking about Ward.

Trip interjects in her thoughts. “You know,” he says, “at first, I thought you and Simmons, maybe.”

Skye blinks at that in surprise. “Huh…No. Maybe in another life.”

“In another life, I could have been on this team from the start.” Trip leans in and looks at her, giving her a playful suggestive look.

She laughs, “Easy playboy.” But Trip is fun to joke around with and easy to talk to. And when Skye imagines a time with no Ward, she thinks she would have liked those other lives.

* * *

Later that night, while Trip and Fitz decide to go for a supply run and Coulson has shut himself in his room, Skye gets ready for bed. She takes her turn for the shower after Jemma. She scrubs at her skin under the hot water for longer than is strictly necessary. There’s a churning, itching feeling she can’t get rid of. She sighs, steps out of the shower and gets changed.

She tries to go though her routine, but she can't stop thinking about it. About _him_. She thought he protected people who couldn’t protect themselves because he knew what it was like to be helpless, just like she did. She thought he was good. But it was all a lie. He is a monster.

She looks in the mirror and she can’t believe that she is the girl who looked at him and believed his lies and thought that they understood each other. All he really cared about was himself, and what he wanted. Which apparently, was to be the perfect Hydra Nazi, and her. Was she supposed to find that romantic? She wanted another shower.

_“I would never hurt you,” he says as he has her handcuffed to a railing. “It’s nothing personal,” he says after he kisses her._

She kissed him. Fuck she kissed him. She can feel her skin crawl. Oh god, that was Eric’s blood on his face. He kissed her with Eric’s blood on his hand. He touched her with the hands that murdered how many innocent people. Would he have tried to sleep with her then if she hadn’t seen the blood? Would he have tried to get as far as he could, knowing that she would find out soon? Her stomach churns.

She wants to get him out of her head and off of her skin and away from her life. She looks in the mirror at her own reflection. She should have known better. God, she should have known better. And she hates, she _hates_ , that underneath the disgust, underneath the loathing, underneath the betrayal, there is heartbreak too. Because that means she gave some part of her heart to him to hold, and how is she supposed to take it back?

She kissed him. She wanted to. And now she wants to throw up. It creeps over her skin slowly. She knows what it is. It has followed her for her entire life. With every family that didn’t work out and every time that she wasn’t a good fit. But the families that hurt the most were always the ones she thought were good, and turned out to be a lie. And she should be able to tell by now, shouldn’t she? What was _wrong_ with her, that it just kept happening. She hoped and she hoped for something that she just kept losing. But she could never seem to stop herself.( _“We won’t turn our back.”_ )

Skye puts her shaking hands over her face and tries to muffle the sob that is threatening to escape. There is a gentle knock on the door. She jumps, her heart racing.

“Skye?” asks a quiet, familiar British voice. “Can I come in? It’s just me.”

It’s just Jemma, her voice soft and concerned. Skye clears her throat. “I, uh, yeah…” She hurriedly wipes at her face, trying to look like less of a mess. Jemma opens the door, and based on her expression, Skye must still look like plenty a mess.

“Oh Skye,” says Jemma sympathetically.

Skye tries to shrug it off. “I’m, I’m okay.” She doesn’t sound convincing to even her own ears.

Jemma pulls her into a hug, and her tears fall even harder.

“I kissed him,” she whispers into Jemma’s shoulder, her voice dripping with disgust. It is a confession.

“Shh,” soothes Jemma. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Skye shakes her head into Jemma’s shoulder. “It’s not.”

Jemma holds her tighter. “We’ll get him,” she says firmly. And it is a promise. “We will get him.”

Skye isn’t sure how long they stand there, holding on to each other, but by the time they let go, she feels just a little bit better. She’s not alone. She has not lost her family entirely. Not this time.

“Did you need something in here or?” she asks.

Jemma smiles a little. “There’s something you should see,” she says mysteriously.

“Okay…”

They walk back over to the adjoining door and Jemma knocks. Coulson opens the door and standing next to him is May.

“May,” Skye blurts out in surprise. “You’re back. Are.. _are_ you back?”

“I had to chase a lead. I’m back now,” May confirms.

Skye is flooded with relief. May was chasing a lead. Something to do with Coulson judging by the look they exchanged. She didn’t just leave. Skye wants to say something but all that comes out is a broken, “Ward…”

“I know,” May says, and it’s just a touch more gentle than normal. There’s something in her expression there, a kind of regret. And Skye realizes May is sorry that she wasn’t there when it all happened. Skye nods. Tries to tell May that she understands. May nods back.

There is more Skye could say. More she should say. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. I’m sorry I thought you betrayed us when you were only worried about Coulson. I was angry at you for leaving me. I was wrong about you. I was so fucking scared and I wanted you there. But she doesn’t say any of that. Because May is back, and all Skye knows is that she feels safer.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Skye says.

“Me too.”

* * *

Early the next morning after a long night of not sleeping, Skye goes outside to sit by the pool chairs, wishing she had a cup of coffee as she watches the sunrise. Not much time has passed when Trip joins her. “Of course you’re a morning person,” Skye states.

“I would have pegged you for a night owl.”

Skye just shrugs, and doesn’t tell him that she only got about an hour of sleep before the nightmares woke her. Luckily she didn’t wake anyone else. And she got to witness the hilarity of Fitz sprawled out like a starfish on his stomach with one arm on top of Trip’s middle.

Her and Trip sit in the quite of the morning for a while, just watching the sunrise. It is so deceptively peaceful. The world as they knew it has ended, but the sun was still rising like the planet wasn’t over run by Hydra. Skye sighs. Trip looks at her, silently inviting her to speak. 

“Were you close, you and Garrett?” she asks him.

“Not as close as I thought we were.” He is making an odd expression now, and Skye realized he thought she was trying to figure out if she can trust him. But she heard what he did from Simmons and she had no reason not to trust him at this point, even if they were all still hesitant from Ward.

“I wasn’t implying-” she reassures him quickly. Trip nods, his expression relaxing, understanding what she was getting at.

“I was only assigned to his team to fill the vacancy.”

“Right.” Skye makes a face. The vacancy Ward left behind.

Trip looks at her thoughtfully. “My partner,” he says, “Dan, he was with Garrett a lot longer than I was. Trained with him. Garrett taught him everything he knew.”

“What happened?” Skye asks with a bad feeling.

“Garrett killed him.”

Skye let out a long breath. “I’m sorry.”

Trip nods. “I think he suspected something, but didn’t know who to trust.” He pauses and sighs. “Wish he had trusted me.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to put you in danger too.” Skye offers.

“Maybe.”

“I actually thanked him,” Skye admits with a hint of self-loathing. “Garrett. For helping to save me. When he was the one who…” She swallows. “Who ordered Quinn to shoot me. And he must have told him to make it slow, too. So that I would be basically dead but just alive enough so that Coulson would try to save me with the gh325. And I looked him in the eye and thanked him. And Ward…” Her voice breaks.

“It’s hard, when it’s someone who trained you,” Trip says with understanding. “Someone you trusted to keep you safe and teach you how to keep yourself safe. And they, well…”

“Turn out to be a Nazi.”

Trip nods, “My grandfather, he fought Nazis back in the day. We won then. We’ll win now. In fact…that gives me an idea.” His face lights up suddenly. Skye looks at him bemused at the sudden shift.

“What…?”

He just grins at her mysteriously. “You’ll see. I gotta go.”

“Okay…”

* * *

It’s night two and Skye still can’t sleep. She wishes she had her knife. She stays up on her computer instead, building the program that will activate her trojan horse. Checking and double checking the code. Her mind keeps wandering. Eventually she drifts off into an uneasy sleep full of men screaming that they would never hurt her. (They always do.)

She wakes up abruptly to someone calling her.

“Skye. Wake up.”

May is standing above her. Skye looks around quickly, heart pounding, taking in her surroundings automatically. Fitz and Simmons were still asleep, Coulson was in the other room just out of sight past the adjoining door, and Trip had left to get them gear from his mother. It was fine. Everything was fine.

She quickly rubs at her eyes. “I, did I wake you?” she whispers. She doesn’t think she usually calls out during nightmares, but she knows she can be restless.

May frowns at her. “Come on. Put your shoes on.”

Skye does and they walk out towards the pool. She sits down on the ground next to the water and May sits beside her. She doesn’t say anything. Skye bites back a sigh. She really doesn’t want to talk about this, but apparently May is going to make it a thing.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Skye mumbles.

May looks decidedly unimpressed. “You were planning to stay up all night? For the next, how many nights, until we found him?”

Skye shrugs.

“What was your nightmare about?” May asks, and it’s more gentle than Skye would have expected and she’s not sure how she feels about that.

“Really, you want to talk?” She says it a little sharply.

“No,” says May flatly. Which is a little comforting, honestly. “But you need to sleep, Skye,” she adds.

Skye picks at her fingers, avoiding May’s eyes. Finally after an uncomfortable pause she blurts out, “I sleep with a knife.”

“What?” May looks genuinely startled at that. But Skye is too uncomfortable and kind of embarrassed about the whole thing to appreciate having actually surprised May.

“Didn’t always have a van. So, knife. Left it on the Bus.” She tries to act casual about it. It’s not a big deal. There is a pause. Then-

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Skye says a little incredulously, expecting, well, something. May just gets up and starts walking back to their room. Skye follows, a little lost. May pauses at the door.

“Is it better or worse if you have your own bed?” she asks, and Skye knows she will take nothing less than an honest answer.

“Worse.”

May just nods and enters the hotel room. She walks over to the bed and pulls back the covers on Skye’s end of the bed where Jemma is sleeping, silently demanding that Skye get in. Skye rolls her eyes but kicks off her shoes and climbs into the bed, lying on her back. May goes into the other room, and returns a few moments later. She walks back and holds something out to her to take. It is a pocket knife.

“May…” Skye says, filled with emotion that she is too exhausted to process.

“Keep it.” May says simply before walking off to the other room. She leaves the door open between them.

* * *

**1x21**

The next day they’re back at the pool. Back at talking about Ward. (And when could they be done talking about Ward. She doesn’t want to think about him. She wants to get him out of her head and off of her skin.) Fitz still thinks he is innocent.

“When are you going to stop clinging to the idea that Ward is the victim and not the perpetrator?” Simmons asks Fitz frustratedly.

Fitz snaps, “When I see something that tells me I shouldn’t with my own two eyes. We don’t know all the facts.”

Anger flares in Skye. The facts? Was he serious? What did he call everything that had just happened? Because she just saw plenty of facts with _her_ own two eyes.

“You want a fact, Fitz? Ward murders people!”

_Blood drips onto her tablet. Eric’s eyes are open. His cheek is pressed into the grate._

Ward murdered Koenig. That is a _fact_.

Fitz thinks they just don’t understand. She understands.

Ward kidnapped her. Ward was a deranged psychopath.

_“Do you have any idea, how hard it was. The sacrifices, the decisions that I had to make. But I made them.” His eyes are wild. His voice is full of self-pitying misunderstood rage._

A man is dead. Skye saw his body. She was teasing him one minute, and he was gone the next. And for what?

_“Some day, you’ll understand.”_

Ward wants to _make_ her understand. But he will _never_ get what he wants from her.

_“They’re real Skye. They always have been.” He says this like she is supposed to find it romantic. The Nazi serial killer has feelings for her. What does that say about her? She feels nauseous. His hands are on her face and it makes her skin crawl._

_“I’m gonna throw up.”_

And fuck, fuck this. Fuck the way she _still_ feels sick, even when she is not looking at him. Fuck the way she wants to cry as much as she wants to yell.

I am telling you the facts, Fitz, she wants to keep shouting. I was _there_. Stop defending him. Stop defending him to _me_. But she knows he doesn’t hear her.

Why don’t you believe me? She can’t help but think. What is it going to take for you to believe me?

Skye can’t explain it. The itching under her skin. The churning in her stomach. She can’t put into words her discomfort at hearing this talk. This denial and defense of the man who…She can’t explain it. She can barely even think about it.

Ward was going to hurt people. And fuck. Fuck her. Because she should have killed him. She should have killed him when she had the chance.

* * *

**1x22**

“They were brave until their lasts breaths.”

She should have killed him when she had the chance.

* * *

**Post 1x22**

Skye sits alone in a training room of their new base. It is dark still.

It was over. It was all over. Fitz would be okay in time. He was out of the coma and he had a long recovery ahead of him but he would be okay.

They all survived. She takes deep breaths and repeats it to herself. They survived.

May opens the door and pauses, taking her in.

“You said 5 right?”

May nods slightly, and starts to do her Tai Chi routine. Skye tries to copy her. May stops periodically and starts to give her pointers.

Abruptly, May says, “Now Ward is gone, you’re going to need a new SO.”

“Yes,” says Skye quickly, and then adds, “I mean, please. If you’re offering?”

There is the tiniest hint of a smile on May’s face.

“We start tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and a special thanks to anyone who has left kudos, bookmarked, subscribed, or commented on this or any of my fics. Im new to this and you all have made diving into this fandom such a great experience <3  
> And btw, if anyone is following my parallel character studies series, the one on Daisy and Jemma should be up tomorrow (2/28) 
> 
> Up next: ‘Something Inside’, pre- season 2 time jump and season 2a, Skye deals with her past while learning to become an agent from May with some help from Trip


	3. Something Inside (2x01-2x10)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: flashback, panic attack, referenced child abuse, brief description of child abuse, mentions self harm, mentions suicidal thoughts, mentions canon rape threat, discussion of gaslighting
> 
> I cut chapters off at 10k so they’re going to vary in length but this is the max

**Something Inside  
** Steve Erdody & Jonathan Rhys Meyers  
 _Something inside you is crying and driving you on  
_ _It's the first thing you see as you open your eyes  
_ _The last thing you say as you're saying goodbye  
_ _If you hadn't found me, I would have found you_

**Pre 2x01**

It is when May officially becomes Skye’s SO that Skye decides there is something else she needs to deal with first. Something she has been putting off. She is alone in her room at the Playground with the door closed. She sits down at her desk and plugs in the flash drive. She frowns, takes a deep breath, and then opens the file. Her file.

It’s all there, the entire history of her childhood. Well, not the entire history, only the things that made it out of the houses and onto the pages of the social workers’ reports. But it was more than she thought she would see. And so Skye starts at the top and then scrolls though her history.

It started with being left at St. Agnes. She was healthy baby. A note about allergies was added when she was two. She apparently stayed at over half a dozen places that she has no memory of. Then a hospital record for an allergic reaction when she was five. The family hadn’t wanted to keep her after that. Or perhaps the foster system wouldn’t let them. Or maybe SHIELD hadn’t let them. The file didn’t say, and she couldn’t remember. But she’d spent almost two years at the orphanage after that and it was the longest she’s stayed anywhere.

Then another foster home when she was seven. Another hospital record by the time she was eight. The Brody’s when she was nine. Several more homes. Notes from mandatory state appointed social workers. More placements. More shrinks. And then finally after fourteen placements that she can remember and seven that she can’t, her last home with Janet Sutter when she was sixteen. Before she ran away and they lost all trace of her.

She reads through all the notes. Several words jump out at her. They changed over the years, as she changed.

…emotional…remains optimistic…impulsive…performing…internalized feelings…shame…reacting to unstable environment…anxiety and general nervousness…seeking control…self injurious behavior via bruising…avoidance strategies…deflection…

Skye erases the notes from the therapists and caseworkers but leaves the rest. She pulls out the flash drive and pauses for a minute, thinking about what to do. Then she closes her laptop and stands up to go find Koenig.

Koenig is in charge of SHIELD personal intake. Skye doesn’t _have_ to give the drive to him. No one even knows that this file exits still. But the other options are to trash it, or to keep it in a box somewhere, and she doesn’t think she wants to do that. It feels oddly like giving away pieces of herself to them, even though they were the ones who had the information in the first place. But she would rather give this away then erase it completely or carry it with her.

So she gives the flash drive to Koenig. Something in her face must signal to him that this is something significant to her, or at least something private, because he assures her that only people with the highest security clearance will see it, that agent personal files are protected. Skye knows, she wrote the security herself. Because she’s an agent now. And she might be giving them something of herself, but she’s getting something in return too. They’re not agents of nothing anymore. She’s an Agent of SHIELD again. She has the lanyard to prove it. It’s stupid, but it still means something to her.

* * *

It is Skye’s first real day of having May as her SO. So far after their Tai Chi she has run and done physical strength tests as well as boxing exercises. When they finish she looks at May hopefully.

“Are we done?” Skye asks.

May looks at her flatly. “No, now we spar.”

Skye sighs. “Do we have to? I’d rather not get my ass kicked, thanks.”

May rolls her eyes. “What would be the point in that?” She adds, “I need to see what you can do. How much he taught you.”

“I can just show you that.”

“I need to see how you react in a fight. So, we spar.” May gets into a fighting stance. “Go.”

It goes okay at first. Skye’s pretty good at dodging and blocking hits. And obviously May is going very easy on her but she’s starting to get into a rhythm. She tries a throw and May takes her down and flips it around on her but she manages to break free and get back to her feet. She goes back to dodging and blocking, dodging and blocking.

And then something changes. She’s not sure what it is, exactly. Something about the way May grabs her. Something about the location of the punch she lands. Something about the way Skye can’t quite bring herself to hit back. But something inside of Skye twists and breaks. And then she is lost.

She froze.

Adrenaline shot though her entire body at once.

A concerned hand reached out to her.

(A closed fist came down on her.)

She backed away.

She was here, but she wasn’t here.

Her back hit the wall.

She sank to the floor.

Pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs protectively.

Stop. Make it stop.

Her lungs had a rubber band wrapped around them.

She couldn’t breathe.

Why couldn’t she breathe?

Was she dying?

She hears a voice.

“Skye, can you hear me?”

She’s not sure who it is.

“Skye?”

May. It’s May’s voice. May’s face comes into focus. She asks again if she can hear her. Skye nods.

She can hear. She just can’t breathe.

“Okay, good. Focus on my voice. Let everything else fade away.”

She tries. May keeps talking to her.

“Good. Take deep breaths. Feel your heart slowing.”

Skye does. It takes a few minutes, but eventually she calms down.

“Thank you,” she mumbles embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”

May shakes her head. She is crouched on the ground in front of her. “Not your fault. I’m sorry I scared you.”

Skye blinks. No one has ever apologized to her for that before. She shakes her head. Tries to find the words. “No it’s not, I didn’t think…” She hadn’t wanted to fight May, but she hadn’t anticipated a full blown panic attack either. She can’t find the words and just shrugs. “That hasn’t happened in long time.”

“But it used to?”

“When I was younger. Sometimes. It went away, mostly. Now I just get, nervous. I can usually ignore it.”

May nods, and sits down cross legged. “How about, instead of ignoring it, we figure out how to deal with it.”

“You’re not, you still want to be my SO?” She feels distinctly childish asking, but she can’t help it.

“Yes,” May states simply. Skye is flooded with relief. They sit together for another moment. Skye drinks the water May hands her.

“Did this happen with Ward?” May asks.

Skye shakes her head. “No. But, that makes sense.” She looks at May's face and realizes how that sounded. “I didn’t mean, it’s not you, not really…” Skye looks away from May uncomfortably. “Ward and I didn’t do a lot of sparring like this. He would teach me moves. But even when we did, I didn’t, Ward was my SO, but I never saw him as, we were more, equal. Or I _thought_ we were. It’s not the same.”

There is a moment while she waits for May to understand and then, “Oh.”

“Yeah,” says Skye, awkwardly. But it’s not like May doesn’t know about her childhood. She can put two and two together and get ‘problem with authority figures.’

“Okay,” May says simply. “We start again same time tomorrow. In the mean time…” And she rattles off a list of things for Skye to study.

* * *

They are back at it the next day.

“Now what?” Skye asks, hesitantly.

May says simply, “Now we talk.”

Skye feels her heart speed up, “What, I’m not, I don’t-”

May interrupts her before she can spiral too much. “I don’t need to know what happened in your past. But we need to figure out a way for you to work through this. Was it anything specific that I did?”

“No, I don’t know. I don’t really remember.” Skye looks at the ground, rubs her foot at the edge of the mat absently. “The context, matters. I mean, I can keep it straight in my head mostly. I don’t know, what happened.” She shrugs, resists the urge to cross her arms. She looks up at May and is reassured that while there is some sadness and anger in her eyes, it is buried and she mostly just looks thoughtful.

“I um, I’ve been thinking about stuff lately,” Skye admits. “I was looking though my file. SHIELD kept one, apparently. And everything with, everything. I just, I don’t know. Maybe it will go away.”

“Do you think it will?”

“Not really. I mean its been like ten years and I’m still not over it apparently. So…”

May frowns at her, “There’s no time limit on these things. You’re allowed to need time to deal with the things that hurt you. Especially when you were a child.” Which is a nice thought, but Skye needs to know how to deal with this shit _now_ , if she’s going to be an agent.

“I don’t, know what to do,” Skye admits.

“We’ll figure it out.” May is calm and confident, and Skye appreciates it more than she can say.

* * *

A couple days later when Skye shows up to train, May is not alone.

“Trip?”

He smiles at her casually, “Hey, heard you could use a sparing partner.”

May is looking at her carefully, “I still need to see how you fight. I thought it might be easier.”

Skye turns to May and lowers her voice so that Trip can’t hear her. “Did you tell him?”

“No,” May states frowning. “That’s not my place.”

Skye looks back at Trip who is putting his gloves on. “Okay…”

“Okay?” May checks.

Skye thinks about it, then nods, “Yeah…” She adds more confidently, “Yes, that should be okay.”

She puts her gloves on and starts taking deep breaths like May has been drilling her on.

“Nervous?” Trip asks.

“A little,” Skye admits.

Trip nods. “You got this. And I’ve got your back.”

They start sparing. Trip pushing her just enough to keep her on her toes but not enough that she feels actually threatened. And it is easier with Trip than with May. But maybe she has built it up too much in her head because the first time she lands an actual unexpected punch right on Trip’s jaw her heart starts racing.

Skye immediately retreats, holding her breath. And then Trip… laughs. And beams at her.

“Damn girl, okay then.”

His smile is like sunshine. It warms her. Makes it easier to breathe. She smiles back at him. Maybe this isn’t so scary after all. They start sparing again, and everything is just a little bit looser and freer.

“Okay.” May calls it. “I’ve seen enough. Good work.”

Trip holds his gloved fist out to Skye and she taps it with her own. “Thanks.”

“Anytime. That was fun,” Trip says earnestly.

“Not bad,” May says after he’s left. “You have a good awareness of where you’re opponent is. And you aim for the head. That’s a good instinct. We’ll build on it.”

“It uh, it felt easier, with Trip.”

“That’s a good place to start.”

* * *

Her and May work moves individually first. They work with punching bags and with pads. Trip shows up sometimes to help. They try all sorts of things until Skye is comfortable enough to try sparing with May again. There is a lot of stop and start, but it gets easier over time.

“Why’d you call it?” Skye asks one day after May stops.

May looks at her contemplatively. “Your breathing changed. You were tense,” she says quietly.

“Oh. I didn’t…notice. Thanks…” It’s a little off putting, to think that May can read her better than she can tell herself, but its oddly comforting too. Because she trusts May to never go too far.

“How does it feel?” May asks suddenly, “When it’s happening.” It is such a touchy feely therapist question that Skye just raises her eyebrow incredulously. May smiles a little at that. “Physically, I mean,” she corrects. Oh, that makes more sense. She thinks about it. Thinks about how her body freezes up. How her blood starts pumping. The bitter taste in her mouth. The uncomfortable fluttering feeling. She knows what it is.

“Like, a shot of adrenaline.”

May nods like that is what she was expecting. “Think you can use that?”

“What?” Skye is taken aback. How is she supposed to use her deer in headlights freeze and panic reaction?

“Adrenaline in a fight can be a good thing,” May explains. “If you don’t let it overwhelm you.”

“How am I supposed to do that.”

“Don’t panic. Embrace it.”

“Easier said than done,” Skye mutters. Skye may be an adrenaline junkie at heart, but adrenaline plus fists has only ever ended badly for her.

“So we practice. Until it’s just muscle memory.”

* * *

Surprisingly, they do keep making progress on it. With May as her teacher, Skye advances quickly. There were lessons, a lot of them.

_“Trust your instincts. They’ve gotten you this far.”_

Yeah, her instincts and a miracle drug.

_“Use your environment. This space is yours.”_

But it doesn’t feel like it.

“You have just as much right to be here as anyone else. You earned this. It’s yours. So take it, and use it.”

She tries, she really, really, tries to believe that.

_“It might help if you weren’t so surprised every time you land a hit”_

But May looks like she finds that one a little enduring so Skye doesn’t feel too bad about it.

And always, always, always, maintain control.

_“Control your body, control your mind, and maintain that control in the field.”_

And as Skye gets a better handle on her technique, she also gets a better handle on her nerves. Until finally she starts to feel like she is learning more than she is panicking and drowning. And it is right then, right when she is staring to feel a little more stable, that the rug is pulled out from under her again. She suspects that May has been giving Coulson updates on her because when he shows up to talk with her it is not for a friendly catch up.

“Skye, I need to tell you something,” he pauses and frowns, dragging it out.

Skye sighs with frustration at his hesitancy. “Just get it over with, Coulson.”

“Ward is here.”

“What,” says Skye flatly. He can’t be serious.

Coulson looks at her apologetically. “He’s locked up. He can’t get out. He’s in the basement.”

“What.” He’s actually serious.

“We need him for intel,” Coulson explains. “We need an advantage against Hydra. That’s him.”

“I, what.” No. This was just. No.

“Skye,” Coulson sounds both concerned and a touch exasperated at her inarticulate answer which, seems unfair.

“Coulson,” Skye states annoyed.

There is a pause where they just stare at each other. Neither saying anything. Skye breaks it.

“I’m not talking to him,” she states. “I, I don’t want to talk to him.” She adds the second part more quietly. A little vulnerable.

“We might need you to,” Coulson says apologetically.

“Coulson.”

“Not right now. But, he might not talk. We might run out of options. I don’t like it either. If there’s any other way, I’ll take it. I just want you to be prepared. As an agent, that might be something that I ask you to do, as Director.”

Skye glares at him, and then, “Fine.”

“And Skye, I already told Simmons, but Fitz can’t know.”

“Fine.”

Ward was here. In their basement. Like something straight out of a horror movie.

He said one day she will understand and she really does not want to. She fought for control of her life for so long she does not understand how he could be so desperate for someone else to take control of his. She has spent so long wishing she had the power to help the innocent and he spent who knows how long murdering them. She looked for a team to belong with and he betrayed them and tried to kill them. He used his past as justification for his crimes. He used her past to manipulate her. He was the embodiment of every bad thing she has witnessed and fought against her entire life. That is not something she wants to understand.

Skye goes to the punching bags to try and blow off some of her energy. She’s hardly there for more than a few minutes when May shows up. She just stands in front of her for a minute, watching silently before speaking.

“He told you about Ward,” May says knowingly. Skye just keeps hitting the bag.

“Relax, you’re form is slipping.”

“I thought I’m supposed to channel my emotions,” Skye says a little bitterly.

May doesn’t rise to the bait. “You are, but not without proper form.” Skye ignores her and keeps hitting the bag as hard as she can. May watches her silently for another minute before interjecting. “Take a break,” she orders, tone firm.

Skye sighs, but listens, pulling off her gloves and picking up her water bottle. She unscrews the cap to take a sip and sits on the bench. May sits next to her calmly, waiting for her to talk.

“He said he would never hurt me,” Skye states with a scoff. The memory of it making her angry all over again. “After he betrayed us and murdered Koenig. After he kidnapped me and threatened me. While he was _still_ working for Garrett _after_ Garrett ordered Quinn to basically kill me. But all that doesn’t count, I guess. That’s not hurt enough for him. Like if he never hit me, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” May states.

“I know,” Skye says. And she does, and it doesn’t really make her feel any better. She’s bitter in a way that hurts. Because for all his talk about _her_ understanding _him_ , she knows he will never understand what he did to her. That he does not care to understand. She keeps talking, letting out the thoughts that swirl around chasing each other in her head.

“I just, does it even count as gaslighting if I think he’s so deluded that he actually believes it? Or he’s convinced himself to. Like, he thinks it’s my fault, for making him… _want_ me. And if it’s my fault, then he’s allowed to, to, do whatever he wants to me.” ( _“Maybe I’ll just take what I want, wake up something inside of you.”)_ She suppress a shudder at that.

“He’s a psychopath,” states May flatly.

Skye knows what May is saying with that. Don’t bother to try and understand him or his motivations. Don’t give him that space in her head. He’s not worth her time or trouble. And Skye doesn’t want to, but he keeps forcing himself in, invading her thoughts. She had said she wasn’t afraid of him but she was. But at the same time, she knew she didn’t have to be. Because May was there.

“I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” Skye says to May quietly.

May understands. “So we keep working.”

Skye takes a breath. Stands up. “So, proper form.”

* * *

Skye goes to find Jemma once she has calmed down, knowing that Jemma will get it.

“So he told you?” Jemma says understanding at once.

“Yeah…this sucks.”

Jemma nods in agreement. “It really does…” She looks somewhat guilty then. “I um…I have to tell you something too.”

“What is it?” Skye asks with concern.

“I, well…I’m going away, for a while. To visit my parents. I just, I can’t…I can’t stay here. And Fitz is…he’s gotten a lot better, but I think, I think, maybe I’m not so helpful to him anymore. And I…”

Jemma was leaving. Jemma was, Jemma was leaving. And it’s really not fair to her that Skye’s automatic reaction is to be hurt. But shit, it hurts.

“Jemma…”

Jemma takes a breath. “I can’t stay here.”

Skye nods. She gets it. She gets it a lot. “Okay.”

“I’m not leaving _you_ ,” Jemma reassures her.

“No, I know.”

“Think of it this way, by the time I come back, you can show me everything you’ve learned.”

“You’re coming back?” It slips out automatically. And Skye regrets it at once. But still… she needs to know.

“Yes, Skye. I’m coming back.” Jemma looks her in the eye, and there is something there. Something deeper than Skye can really comprehend. “I promise.”

“Well I’ll, I’ll see you then, then…Whenever that is…” She trails off awkwardly.

“I…” Jemma starts to say something, closes her mouth and just looks at her.

“You uh, you, you take care of yourself, okay. You do what’s best for you,” Skye says sincerely. “And then come back when you can, okay?”

“Okay.”

* * *

The day after Jemma leaves Skye stands in the shooting range, holding her gun.

“You’re going to have to shoot it eventually,” comes May’s voice from behind her.

Skye puts the gun down quickly and turns. “What? I’m not, I, I know.”

“Skye,” May says calmly, “it’s okay.”

“I, I thought I might…I came down, when there was no one here. To practice. I shouldn’t have. I freaked out.” Her voice is full of annoyance for herself. Why does she have all these hang ups? Why can’t she just be okay?

Skye had suspected she might have a problem with it, what with how many problems she has been having with her nerves lately. So she came down on her own to try shooting. It was the sound that got her. Now she can’t bring herself to try again. She has been coming down every day after training with May. She should have known that May knew. May knew everything.

“Skye…”

“The first shot, I didn’t see coming. I read him wrong. Mike left and I turned and I, I was just standing there…Then he grabbed me, and, pulled me close, and…I read him wrong.” And Skye knows she was so so stupid.

May frowns at her. “You couldn’t have known he had orders.”

Well, yeah, that was true. But still. Skye just frowns back down at the gun.

“This is pointless. I can’t even shoot a gun, how am I ever going to be ready for the field?”

May takes her arm and turns her so that she is facing her rather than facing down the target. Skye looks at her.

“Skye, you were shot twice. You almost died. This reaction makes sense. But you won’t always feel like this. We’ll work on it together. When your ready, we’ll try again. Just like with fighting.”

Skye nods.

“Here,” May says, handing her something Skye didn’t notice she was holding.

“A watch?”

“A heart rate monitor,” May corrects. “Something tangible for you to focus on. So when you feel your heart rate rise, you can watch as you bring it back down.”

“Thank you,” says Skye, and she knows May knows she means for so much more than just the watch.

* * *

The first time that Skye shoots a gun with real actual bullets and not ICERs without panicking she wants to tell Jemma. She thinks she would be proud of her. But Jemma is not there. Jemma has not sent so much as a text in weeks. She said she was going to see her parents and then she never came back. They baked her a birthday cake and everything. Was she ignoring them?

Skye can’t help but wonder if Jemma hasn’t just forgotten about them.

Why wouldn’t she at least call or text or something? Did they mean that little to her? After everything? Skye wonders if she is just being foolish to believe Jemma’s promise that she would come back . Maybe Jemma was one more person that she read wrong.

Skye goes down to the lab. The sight is all wrong. Jemma should be there.

Skye approaches Fitz. “Hey. Mind if I hang out in here for a while?”

Fitz shakes his head.

“Cool. I just need to get away from all the new people, you know?” And everyone else seems to be avoiding the area for now.

Fitz gives her a half shrug, half jerk of his head. Skye tries not to let her sadness at his lack of talking show on her face. She doesn’t mind the stutter and pauses, she wants to tell him. She doesn’t think he is any less intelligent, just because he is having problems communicating. She just hates to watch him struggle. And she hates to makes this about her, but it is hard to see and to remember how he used to be, when he is having so much trouble now. And she hates Ward more with every lost word.

She sits and works in silence for a while. She can almost pretend that it is like before. Almost. She looks over at Fitz. He is gazing into the distance.

“I miss her too,” she tells him softly.

Fitz looks back at her. “Yeah,” he whispers.

* * *

**2x01**

Skye starts spending time on the Bus to hide from all the new faces. And maybe it reminds her of the way things were before. Trip often finds her in there and he brings her a beer after a mission. They joke about the Koenig’s being robots and she tells him about the circles and lines she’s been staring at for a month now, trying to figure out where they came from.

Coulson walks in and asks to talk with her, but he doesn’t want to talk about her search for the designs origins. Instead he hands her papers.

Skye looks at them and then she realizes, Ward. The day she has been dreading has come. She is going to have to talk to Ward.

“Why now?” she asks Coulson.

“Because the technology in play warrants it.”

“And do I have a say in this?”

Coulson just sighs.

Of course she doesn’t. Because for whatever creepy reason, Ward will only talk to her. Skye doesn’t want to talk to him. God she doesn’t want to talk to him. The last time she talked to him he was holding a gun at her while he threatened to rape her. She wishes Jemma was here. Jemma would understand. She wouldn’t judge her.

Billy walks her to the vault and she can't help but think of his brother. She blinks away the imagine of his body and his blood as they walk. He explains the confinement grid to her, trying to reassure her.

“Just tell me there isn’t an off button I can accidentally hit.” She halfheartedly tries to pass off like a joke. Skye hates this. She knows that Ward can’t hurt her, but she hates that she is still scared of him.

“You’ll be safe, I promise,” says Billy seriously. Skye turns. Pauses at the door and takes a breath, going over everything she worked on with May to stay calm. She can do this. May taught her how to take care of herself. She won’t let him have that power over her.

She opens the door and goes inside.

“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

She wants to leave. She sits down. Says nothing.

_(“Control your body, control your mind.”)_

“I told Coulson weeks ago that I was willing to speak to you. To give you intelligence.”

One sentence out and the bs has already began. As if Coulson was being unreasonable, or she was for not wanting to talk to him. When he was keeping intel from them that could save lives as a bargaining chip to get what he wants.

She questions him and then holds up the photo for him to see. He stalks forward, staring at her the entire time. She thinks he knows exactly who Creel is without looking at the picture. She will not waver.

_(“Maintain that control in the field.”)_

Her eyes catch the scars on his wrist. And when he follows her gaze he starts to speak.

He describes it. Gives details when she didn’t even ask what happened, let alone how it happened.

He watches her closely as he says it. Tracking her reaction as he shows her his wounds.

She had never told him that she felt like that before, when she was younger, but maybe he suspected anyway. He thought it would make her feel sorry for him, make him seem relatable. Form a connection. Find a weakness and exploit it. Showing her his vulnerability worked for him before, and so of course he tries it again now.

( ~~ _“I am not a good man, Skye.”)_~~

_(“He’s a psychopath.”)_

He is playing into her empathy but she has none left to give him. He has manipulated this situation from the start.

He finally gives her intel and she starts to leave.

“I’m not asking for forgiveness. I just want to help you.”

Bullshit. If he actually gave a damn about helping her he wouldn’t force her into this position in the first place. She hits the button and then he is finally silent.

He wants something from her. Validation? Love?

( _ ~~“Maybe I’ll just take what I want.”)~~_

_(“Adrenaline in a fight can be a good thing. Use it. Embrace your emotions.”)_

She has nothing to give to a Nazi. Nothing for a serial killer. Nothing for someone who tried to murder her friends. Nothing for someone who is incapable of doing anything but manipulating the people he claims to care about. Nothing for someone who fails to take any actual responsibility.

He can claim to be ‘clear headed’ about who he is all he wants. It doesn’t matter when he has shown no desire to actually change and be better. No remorse for the people he hurt and killed. The lives he ruined. The families he tore apart. Otherwise he would have talked to Coulson from the start. He is just trying to get what he wants from her. And the fact that he still thinks there's a chance he might get it is both deluded and nauseating. Every moment she spends in his presence makes her skin crawl.

Skye has known people like him. The ones who hurt and then think they are still entitled to more. The ones who make their pain everyone else’s pain and act like they are justified. They try to twist everything until their reality is the only reality and truth of it all gets lost in the fog. And they are so skilled that people can’t help but believe them. And Ward is an expert. But Skye knows better than that. She’s not going to fall for his bullshit.

* * *

**2x03**

It is far too soon for her liking that Skye finds herself back in the basement talking to Ward.

He explains Hydra’s policy on gifted individuals and she says, “That’s the difference between SHIELD and Hyrda.” SHIELD actually valued human life.

“That's why Hydra will win,” Ward states. “While a SHIELD agent is considering _right_ and _wrong_ ,” he draws out the words as if they are such inconvenient burdens, “Hyrda’s already taken the shot.” It’s clear that he thinks this is a good thing. That it makes Hyrda superior to SHIELD.

Skye thinks about it. She can understand part of it. A situation SHIELD might be in where they are so desperate they have to take a life to save many. But its not the greater good she finds disturbing so much as the blatant refusal to even consider the morality of their actions. That Hydra has apparently preemptively freed themselves of all responsibility by claiming it as a means to an end.

But you could justify any crime as for the greater good. Say anything had to be done, no matter how horrific. And if there was no line you were unwilling to cross, nothing you would stand for, then what did that make you? The answer was staring at her. It made you Grant Ward. Traitor. Murderer. Nazi. Selfish. Monster. Puppet. Weak.

Skye will die a hundred times losing her fight to those things before she ever becomes them. And she knows that as an agent, at some point, she is going to have to kill someone. It’s inevitable, really. But she will never kill without consideration. She will never murder without thought.

* * *

Skye is providing backup for May and Hunter as they go after Donnie Gill.

Coulson’s orders come over the coms. “If you can't take him in, take him out.”

“Copy,” reply May and Hunter.

“Agent Skye?” asks Coulson when she doesn’t respond.

“Copy,” Skye says. But she has a bad feeling about this.

It is not long before the situation gets all fucked up and she hears May’s voice over the coms. “We’re trapped.”

“Skye do not let them leave with him,” Coulson orders.

Skye pauses. Takes a breath. She hears May’s voice. _“In the field you need to maintain control.”_

She lines up her shot. He is facing the side. She won’t be able to hit his heart from this angle. If she wants to take him out, she will have to aim for his head. But she doesn’t need to, not yet. She just needs to break his concentration so that May and Hunter can get out.

She fires.

It hits him in the bicep, right where she aimed. But then, he is falling, falling, back over the rail, over the ship, out of sight.

Her heart spikes but she quickly brings it back down. No. Not now, that won’t be helpful right now. She needs to maintain a steady heartbeat. She needs to take another shot. Simmons is still in danger. She pulls the trigger again.

Skye makes it back to Bus on autopilot. By the time they land at the Playground she is in somewhat of a haze.

She killed him. She didn’t mean to. But she killed him. And he is dead. He fell into the water and did not swim to the surface. Because she killed him. And she doesn’t know what she is feeling or what she is supposed to be feeling. She was prepared for this. She expected it would have to happen eventually. But she killed him and now she doesn’t know what she is supposed to do. She wants to get out of here. She wants to go somewhere else. Somewhere safe. She heads to the top level of the Bus. Someone stops her.

“Hey, Skye,” Hunter says, blocking her way.

“What, Hunter,” she snaps at him. His eyes are knowing and sympathetic. She does not like it.

“You had my back,” he says sincerely. “Thanks.”

Skye doesn’t say anything. Just pushes past him to the stairs.

* * *

**Post 2x03**

Melinda has a feeling that something is wrong. It is late at night and something has woken her. She goes to check if Coulson is having another episode, but he is fast asleep. She goes then to the common room to see if anyone is awake. She finds Skye there, sitting at the table with her laptop open.

Melinda frowns. “You’re up late,” she says. Skye jumps, startled, and then calms when she sees her. Melinda almost starts to give Skye a lecture about the importance of a proper sleep schedule when she takes in Skye’s haunted expression.

“Bad dreams?” She asks instead, knowing that Skye has a history of trouble sleeping.

Skye shrugs. One day maybe, Skye will tell someone about her nightmares, but apparently not today. Or maybe she is just not the right person. But Skye looks so dejected about it that Melinda can’t help but say, “I get them too.”

Skye looks at her in surprise at that, considers her for a moment and then nods, like that makes sense. Melinda doesn’t think she wants to know whatever thoughts just passed through Skye’s head. The girl has always been annoyingly perceptive.

Skye sighs, then admits, “I’m trying not to think about him.”

For a moment Melinda thinks she means Ward, but that doesn’t quite fit with what she’s seeing in Skye’s eyes. It’s guilt, she realizes.

“Donnie Gill.”

Skye nods.

“You followed orders,” Melinda offers.

Skye shakes her head. “Not really. I aimed for the shoulder,” she admits, putting her right hand on her left bicep. “But the force knocked him overboard.”

Well that wasn’t all that surprising, actually. That Skye _would_ kill, but only as a last resort. She tries to reassure her. “You used you’re best judgment while in the field and made the call you thought was right. You saved my life and Hunter’s. Maybe Simmons as well.”

“And now a man is dead. A kid. He was only eighteen. It wasn’t even his fault. He was brainwashed.”

“Yes. And you have to live with that.” And there is nothing really that anyone can say to make it better. This is something Skye is going to have to come to terms with for herself.

“And it never gets easier.”

“It shouldn’t.” If it does, that is how you know something is wrong. Melinda has seen first hand in others what that looks like. Burned out agents who cross lines that can’t be uncrossed and stop feeling it. There was a time she was envious of this ability. But she knows better. Emotions are a tool. A distasteful one, but an important one.

Skye nods. And she might have to come to terms with this for herself, but, she doesn’t have to do it alone.

“Come on,” Melinda tells her, deciding abruptly what to do. She leads her into the kitchen and starts pulling out mugs. She thinks of making tea for a minute, but then she has a better idea. Skye has a notorious sweet tooth, after all. Almost as bad as Coulson. She pours milk into a sauce pan and turns on the stove. She can hear echos of Andrew’s teasing not to burn it.

“Hot chocolate?” Skye says sounding bemused.

Melinda just gives her a look. “Do you want it, or not.”

“Yes please.”

Melinda holds back a little smile. There are times she cannot believe this girl is twenty five.

* * *

The next night while watching over Coulson as he goes through his carving episode Melinda decides to say something to him about Skye. She waits until he is done carving and puts the knife down. Then she says to him, “You’re not the only one who’s been up lately.”

Coulson looks up mildly panicked at that, “Skye? Is she, is-”

“No, not _this_ ,” Melinda reassures him quickly. Skye has shown no sighs of carving at all. Just perhaps a mind obsession with finding the origin of the designs, but that could just be Skye being focused, it was hard to tell with her. “Just the standard insomnia that comes with being an agent.” She waits the moment it takes for Coulson to understand.

He sighs deeply. “Donnie Gill. Damnit. I should have, I’ve been so caught up. I should talk to her.”

“She just needs time. And to know you’re still here.”

“You’re worried about her,” Coulson states astutely.

Melinda says nothing.

“You don’t think she can handle it?” Coulson questions. Melinda shakes her head. It wasn’t that. She knows Skye can handle it. Skye can handle a lot more than most people would assume.

“I’m wondering if she _should_.”

Coulson looks taken aback at that. “What?”

“I’m training her to be an agent. To think and move and react like one. And she’s learning fast, trying to be perfect. But being an agent…she might lose something too.” And Melinda is sure that some of Skye’s bubbly personality was an act, a persona she armed herself with to cover her insecurities, but some of it was real too. And she doesn’t want to be the one who takes away the light in the eyes of this girl who she can’t help but look at and think, _child_. (Not again.)

“Skye already decided to be an agent. You’re giving her the tools she needs to protect herself. That’s all we can do.”

Melinda nods, she knows that already. “Skye’s just, different,” she admits.

Coulson’s eyebrows shoot up into his head and he looks annoyingly smug. “Wow. I didn’t know you felt like that. She worms her way in huh.”

Melinda glares at him.

“Skye’s too stubborn to let anything truly change her.” Coulson reassures her. “She might change a lot. She might become almost, unrecognizable. But her heart, that will stay the same. Of that I have no doubt.” He looks at her very pointedly.

Yes, okay. Point made, Phil. Maybe her and Skye aren’t so different after all.

* * *

Skye is having another late night when Coulson approaches her.

“Hey.”

Skye blinks, surprised to see him, but smiles. Coulson is always so busy now and she’s missed him. “Hey, hi. What are you doing up?”

Coulson answers simply, “Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d stretch my legs. Saw you. Brought us something.” He is holding a carton of ice-cream and two spoons. Skye smiles widely at him, the gesture filling her with warmth. She shuts her laptop and takes a spoon as Coulson sits in the chair next to her.

“Thanks AC. Or I guess it’s DC now.”

He gives her a look and picks up his own spoon.

“So, why couldn’t you sleep?” she asks him, “Everything okay…with…everything?”

“It’s nothing for you to worry about,” Coulson evades. But she _is_ worried about him. He’s been distant, and it’s not just his new job title. He’s keeping something from her. She can tell.

“I just wanted to check in,” he says. “I know you’ve had a rough time-”

“I’m fine,” Skye cuts him off. “Really. Fine.” She adds, “You don’t have to worry about me.”

Coulson looks at her sadly but fondly at that. “Well, it seems we’re at an impasse.”

Skye opens her mouth to retort, stops, and closes it again. She pauses, then says, “Rocky Road is a good choice.” And takes another spoonful of ice cream.

But sitting here with Coulson, it brings to mind something else, something she has been trying desperately not to think about since Ward said it. _“Your fathers alive.”_

She pushes the thoughts aside.

* * *

Skye tries not to think about her father- the idea that the man who she thought was dead might not be. And she doesn’t trust Ward, but this seems like such a wild thing to make up that she can’t help but wonder if it is true. And if it is, then what?

She goes back down to the training room and the punching bag she has claimed as her these past few months. She tries and tries not to think about it, but the thoughts force their way through.

She hits the bag with a thump.

_“Every agent has one. A defining moment.”_

thump

_“We won’t turn our back.”_

thump

_“The sacrifices, the decisions I had to make, but I made them.”_

thump

_“Everything I did, good and bad, I did of my own free will.”_

thump

_“Hyrda’s already taken the shot.”_

thump

_“I know something and I want you to believe me when I say it.”_

thump

_“He’s looking for you.”_

thump

_“I’ll take you to him.”_

thump

_“You’re fathers alive.”_

“Woah, girl, you okay?” It is Trip.

Skye regards him for a moment. “Fine, just working off some steam. You want to go a few rounds?”

Trip considers her, then says, “Sure.”

They start sparing and as he dodges a punch, Trip says, “You know, it’s not healthy to keep all that in.”

“Clearly, I’m not.”

Trip somehow manages to look simultaneously disbelieving and concerned. She throws another punch that he dodges. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

After a few minutes, Skye says between breaths, “You have a father?”

Trip answers calmly, “Yeah. He passed a while back. You?”

“I don’t know. Grew up in foster care. Always thought, dads are supposed to protect you, right. Take care of you. Wondered what that would be like. But I learned how to take care of myself. A long time ago.”

She breaks free of the hold he put her in and they fall back into their stances.

“You’ve always been a fighter.” Trip states. “Long before anyone taught you how to throw a punch.”

She didn’t know how much she needed to hear that until he said it. She knew it was true. But to have someone else see it too, see her…She blinks back the rush of emotion and gratitude.

She puts down her hands and takes a long breath signaling the end of the session. They go to sit down on the ground and stretch.

“What’s your family like?” Skye asks.

Trip smiles and starts to tell her. “Pretty ordinary mostly. My dad had the best sense of humor. He always made my mom laugh. And my mom, you know, everyone always asks about my grandfather. I wanted to be just like him when I was kid. But my mom, she’s a hero too. She’s a nurse. Doesn’t take any shit, and is always there for me. One time, when I was a kid…”

* * *

**Post 2x04**

Skye is beginning to feel like this is pointless. She has been searching for something on these circle designs for weeks and has found nothing, not even from her Rising Tide contacts. Trip finds her in a familiar position, sitting at the table staring at her computer screen and all of the endless circles and the lines connecting them.

“How’s the nothing going?” he asks with a gentle smile, sitting down across from her.

Skye looks at him tiredly. “You ever feel like you have all of the pieces right in front of you, and you just can’t put them together.” She lets out a breath of frustration. She can’t explain it. This feeling she has that she is supposed to know this. Like she is somehow connected to these strange designs. “It’s like I’m missing something important. Like I’m not seeing what I’m supposed to be seeing.”

“ _Supposed_ to?” Trip raises his eyebrows.

“And now I sound crazy,” says Skye, knowing it is true.

“Little bit,” says Trip, but he smiles so she knows he’s joking. But Skye feels a little bit like she is losing her damn mind. It feels like they lead somewhere. Like she is supposed to find where. But she can’t figure it out.

She shuts her laptop. “I need a break. How’d your mission with Hunter go?”

Trip immediately shakes his head animatedly, “That man is a disaster. I swear.” And he starts to tell her a story that somehow ends up with a mag being dropped into a sewer grate and Hunter’s apparent ‘soccer hands.’

She relaxes back in her chair and let’s Trip’s voice wash over her.

* * *

**2x05**

There are bodies on the ground.

Skye used to imagine her parents. She dreamed that they loved her and wanted her and would come save her. In the stories she used to make up and the lies she used to tell herself, they were heroes.

There are bodies on the ground. Their throats were slit. There is blood on the floor. There was blood on his hands. He was a monster.

Skye always wondered where she came from. Her mother is dead. Her father is a monster.

And what does that make her?

* * *

**Post 2x05**

Everything was a mess. Her dad was a monster, Coulson was carving alien maps on his wall, and she might be an alien. But at least one good thing happened. Jemma was back.

Skye meets her down in the common room of the base. Jemma is here, right here in front of her. She turns and notices Skye standing in the doorway. And all of the emotion that is right there just underneath it all rises to the surface. Skye’s eyes fill up with tears but she blinks them back.

“Jemma,” she breathes.

“Skye…”

Jemma looks at her like she is hesitant. Like maybe she is worried that Skye is mad at her for leaving. But Skye is just so happy to see her here and safe that everything else fades away. She walks forward and wraps Jemma in a hug. Jemma immediately holds her back tightly.

“I’m really glad you’re back,” Skye tells her sincerely with her head nuzzled in Jemma’s shoulder.

“It’s good to be back.”

* * *

**2x06**

So Ward was getting sent back to his brother. It makes Skye a little uncomfortable to think about but mostly she is just glad that he is finally gone and their basement can stop being haunted like something out of a horror movie. And she got to play him again, which was satisfying. She thought maybe now he would figure out that they were never going to happen. Maybe he would finally realize that she hates him and she is never going to give him what he wants.

But now he is being led down the Playground hall and he is looking at her like he still thinks he has a chance.

And Skye is tired. She is so goddamn tired of looking at him.

Jemma stands in front of her. She stares him down. “If I ever see you again. I’ll kill you.”

And Skye feels something in her chest loosen.

* * *

**Post 2x08**

Her father. Her father was the one who hurt Trip. He almost killed him. Her father. Her father was a monster.

She sinks into a nearby chair.

Fitz speaks up, “My father, he left. When I was ten. It was, um, it was better, that he was gone. But I still, it still…”

“Hurt,” Skye finishes.

“Yeah,” Fitz nods.

She goes to see Trip as soon as the doctors let her. He is sitting up in the bed, his left arm covered in bandages.

“Hi.”

“Hey you,” Trip smiles like he is happy to see her. Her stomach churns with guilt.

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” she tells him, approaching his bedside and sitting next to him.

“I am too.”

“They uh, told me what happened. My father…” Her voice trials off. It’s all so messed up.

“I’m sorry he wasn’t what you hoped he would be.”

Skye shakes her head. “I’m just sorry he hurt you.”

Trip looks at her seriously, “That was him, not you. Don’t blame yourself for that shit.”

She nods but she doesn’t really know how to stop doing that. It feels somehow like she caused this all. She looked for him for so long, and maybe if she had just left it alone, none of this would have happened. She knows it doesn’t make sense, but she can’t stop feeling it.

Trip gestures down to the bag she brought with her. “Come on. What’d you bring me?”

She lifts up the bag and starts pulling out the food. “Snacks. Figure getting shot means you get to break the healthy diet.”

“Hell yes,” Trip says eagerly.

* * *

**2x09**

So Ward killed his brother and his parents. The first thing he did when he got free. Pre-meditated murder. Skye is not at all surprised. It's not the worst thing he’s ever done. (Which was just sad, really.) She does believe that they were abusive. But still.

She thinks about the houses she could have burned down, the assholes she could have killed. But she didn’t. Because she wasn’t a fucking psychopath. She wonders too, what happened to Ward’s younger brother and older sister. What would they think about their parents’ and brothers’ deaths?

And when would it stop? When would it be enough for him? Because he could twist anything in his mind. Make any action justifiable. Killing FitzSimmons, well he was just following orders. Kissing her after killing Eric. Nothing personal. Who was next? Who would be the next person he blamed for his pain? What would be the next crime he tried to justify with his past? May, for locking him up. Coulson, for sending him back to his brother. Her. For not saving him from himself. For not loving him. Were they all next? No. Fuck that. Fuck him.

“All we can do now is try and catch Ward,” says May calmly.

Skye is entirely out of calm. “Or put the son of a bitch down.”

* * *

**2x10**

Her father. Her father is here. He is in front of her.

“You’re a monster.” Skye accuses. “A murderer. A trail of death wherever you go.”

“Those are all true,” he agrees. And Skye hates, she _hates_ that she is disappointed. That some part of her wished he would deny it.

“You were taken from me, and my world fell apart.”

Skye looks away. So it was her fault then. That is what he was saying. All of the death, all of the blood, it was on her. And she never wanted that. Skye used to dream about her parents. She dreamed that they loved her. She never wanted love like _that_.

He was still talking, “I didn’t lose you. I wasn’t careless. I didn’t forget.” His voice raises and his hands go up as he exclaims, “You were stolen from me!”

Skye flinches and jumps, taking a step back automatically. She can’t help it. It’s practically an instinctual reaction, even though he is not even within arms distance of her, her heart is still racing.

They freeze. Cal sits down. “I wasn’t always like this.” He tries to explain. He talks about who he used to be. And he looks at her intently. “This is the thing I want to say. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you. That I couldn’t protect you. That I couldn’t teach you about the stars. Or sing you to sleep.” Skye blinks back her tears. It is everything she ever wanted to hear from him. And it is all wrong.

“I’m gonna take care of you.”

But it was too late. Too late for that. She wants to go, she wants to get out, she wants to go home. She is trapped.

“This is your destiny.”

* * *

Skye is not in a great situation. She is surrounded by Nazis. (And she killed one of them but unlike with Donnie Gill she knows she will never regret it.) She is tied to a chair unable to escape. She just met her monster of a father. (Who had loved her and wanted to protect her?) Her mother was cut to pieces. And the man who did it was right there in front of her. With his hand mockingly resting on her knee.

“Discovery requires experimentation.”

(Were those the last words her mother heard before she was cut to pieces and left like garbage?)

But Skye is okay. She can handle it. She controls her heart rate. Does not panic. Just like May trained her to. Adrenaline in a fight can be a good thing.

Ward cuts her zip ties to release her. He casually puts his hand on her knee and she wants to headbutt him again but she holds back.

She can’t believe he was somehow still here and deluded enough to think that if she just understood his motives, than she would forgive him. Or if he kept his twisted promise that she never wanted him to make, than he would be redeemed and she would love him. (Her stomach feels like it is bubbling up into her throat.) As if he didn’t just threaten to murder her friends and then kidnap her at gunpoint and drag her to an evil scientist who wanted to cut her to pieces. (Did they make it off the Bus? Or did Whitehall murder them too?) She should have killed him when she had the chance. Then he never could have hurt Fitz and Simmons and everything since then.

Skye waited for her opening, just like May taught her. Then she quickly pulled the gun, and shot Ward four times.

She let out all of her anger into the shots. All of her betrayal and hurt. “You taught me that.”

It was less cathartic than she imagined it to be when shooting at practice targets. Oh well. She didn’t bother shooting him in the head. He would die bleeding out slowly and painfully. She knew _exactly_ what that felt like. She didn’t particularly care.

Skye left and didn’t look back. She had more important things to do and he was not worth her time or energy. Maybe as he was bleeding out he would finally get the hint that she wasn’t interested.

Skye goes to find a way out. She can handle this. She has trained for crazy and unpredictable situations.

She is fine. (She’s fine she’s fine she’s fine)

And then her father is beating the hell out of Coulson and maybe she can't handle this after all and its all her fault and she doesn’t know what to do.

And she’s sorry, she’s sorry, she’s so sorry.

She has to fix it.

She has to stop Raina. Raina is going to use the obelisk to kill god knows how many people and they won’t be able to blow the temple in time and it will be her fault and she has to stop it.

There is still time. She can still fix it. She can make it right.

No one could have prepared her for what happened next.

Skye goes into an underground temple and she comes out as Daisy.

She doesn’t know this yet. She won’t know it for many weeks. She will fight it, and deny it, and refuse it.

But this is what happens.

She is not Skye anymore. She is Daisy now.

Daisy is born from the broken pieces of her friends body.

_He is frozen in time, lifeless and cracked and gone._

Daisy is born from regret and loss and pain and guilt.

_So is Skye._

Daisy is born pulsing with power that she does not want or understand.

_Her body is fracturing and breaking. Rebuilding and buzzing._

She does not know what she is feeling.

_It burns like two gunshots to the stomach. It burns like dying alone in the darkness._

Trip died for Skye.

_“I came to get you”_

He died to give her a chance.

He died for nothing.

_His body crumbles into pieces._

She does not know this yet.

She will realize it later.

In the cover of darkness and the in the wake of nightmares where she relives the moment over and over again.

_Her body breaks free of its prison._

The gas did not kill him, the crystals did.

Skye died with Trip.

Trip died for nothing.

_She is reaching._

_So is he._

Trip died thinking he could not save her.

_She is the last thing he sees._

And Daisy is born.

She is born with power in her veins and thunder in her bones.

She is born from the ashes that he left for her.

He is the first thing she sees.

Skye reaches for her friend. She cannot touch him. She can never touch him.

He reaches back.

In her dreams, Daisy reaches for him too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Feelings?
> 
> Up next: ‘Monster’, Skye deals with the repercussions of Trip’s death and her new powers, 2x11-2x16


	4. Monster (2x11-2x16)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: allusions to past abuse, not suicidal thoughts but discussion of it, allusions to suicidal thoughts, mention self harm, issues of body autonomy 
> 
> The 2x12 scene with Fitz is from the delete scenes.

**Monster  
**Caisse Levy  
_Was I a monster from the start?  
__Bringing destruction to the stage  
__Caught in a war that I never meant to wage  
__I cannot be a monster, I will not be a monster_

**Pre 2x11**

_“Hey girl,” says Trip brightly. “Heard you passed your agent exam with flying colors. May mentioned it, which for her is like shouting it from the rooftops.”_

_She smiles at him, “Couldn’t have done it without you.”_

_“Yeah you could have.”_

_“Okay, yeah, I totally could have,” she says laughing._

_He hands her a beer and they clink them together in a toast. She watches him take a sip. She is overcome with a strange emotion. Something like, loss._

_Trip looks at her questioningly, “Why are you looking at me all weird?”_

_She shakes her head. “I don’t know, I just feel like, I miss you…”_

_“Miss me? I’m right here. You don’t have to miss me.”_

_But she knows, all of a sudden. She’s not sure exactly what she knows, but she knows what she wants to say to him._

_“Trip, thanks.”_

_“For what?”_

_“Just, being there…” She looks away and admits, “I didn’t want to die alone.”_

_He looks at her intently, “You’re not alone. And you’re not dying. Just wake up Skye.” But she doesn’t think she wants to. Not without him._

_“Will you be there? When I wake.”_

_He smiles gently at her. “I’ll be here when you fall asleep.”_

Skye wakes up with a sigh, not a jolt. In her dreams, she sees him. She doesn’t see him dying, she sees him smiling. She hears his laugh. She feels his comforting presence. And then she wakes up and remembers and wishes she was still asleep. She keeps her eyes closed and this is when she sees his body, crumbling into dust. When she opens her eyes the image is burned into her eyelids.

She doesn’t want to remember him like this. She doesn’t want to see him cracking into pieces. She wants to remember him the way he is in her dreams. So full of life and warmth. He was like a ray of sunshine in their dark world of dimly lit corridors. Skye imagines saying that to him. He would give her so much crap for it. But it's true. She took him for granted, and now he is gone, because of her, and she can never tell him how important he was. She will never be able to joke with him again. To hug him. To reach him.

She can never reach him.

Trip is gone. And nothing feels right anymore. She doesn’t feel right anymore.

* * *

**Post 2x11**

Her body is buzzing, itching, burning. Her skin feels like it is crawling on top of her. Her organs feel like they are shifting. She is constantly nauseous. She has a headache that won’t go away.

They asked her how she felt over and over again in quarantine, but she knows better than that. She feels fine. Really. Fine.

Sounds are too bright and colors are too sharp and nothing quite makes sense. She sees things in the corner of her eye and she swears she can hear them and feel them too. But then she turns and nothing is there.

Music helps a little. She plays songs with the most bass and tries to drown out all of this new confusing noise. She takes to listening to it through noise canceling headphones with her eyes shut tight.

She has the constant impression that everything around her is moving but nothing is. And every time she touches something, her heart starts racing. Surfaces that should feel smooth feel patchy and disjointed. The very air around her seems chaotic and panicked. She can’t tell what is her own panic and what isn’t. But it must be her own, right? What else could she be feeling? (Everything, she feels everything and she is making things shake and what the _fuck_ how is she making things shake?)

Nothing feels like it used to. What happened to her in there? Raina got porcupine needles and she got, what, hallucinations? (Is it a hallucination if it’s actually happening? She is sensing things no one else is but everyone felt that earthquake.) She wants to hide in a corner in the dark and drown out all the noise of the universe and maybe then everything would make more sense.

There is something very wrong with her and she has no idea what it is.

“Skye. Skye!” May calls to her, getting her attention. Right. She is in the training room with May. She has to focus.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. May frowns at her. Great, now she can add disappointing May to the list of things wrong.

May sighs and then, like she is resigned to something, she opens up her arms and stares at her like she is supposed to understand what that means.

“What are you doing?”

“Come here,” May demands.

“I, what?” Skye is completely confused.

“You said you needed a hug. Take it or leave it. It’s a limited time off-”

Skye throws herself into May’s arms and then squeezes her eyes shut. May holds her back. The world narrows to just May, and it is a little easier to breathe.

Skye should tell May. May is her SO. She can trust May…right? Skye remembers suddenly, vividly, that May shot Hannah with her ICER way back when they thought she had powers. May had some sort of problem with powered people that Skye still didn’t understand. Some bad experience. What if May was disappointed in her? What if May didn’t want to be her SO anymore? What if May wanted her gone? What if May sent heraway…What if, what if, what if…

“I’m sorry.” Skye whispers into May’s shoulder.

“It wasn’t your fault,” May says firmly. This is a lie. It must be a lie.

Skye steps back and takes a deep breath. May nods approvingly. “Now put your gloves on,” she says. “We’ve got work to do.”

* * *

**2x12**

Skye wants to tell Coulson. She needs to tell him. It’s only a matter of time before they find out and it will be better if he already knows and she can't do this anymore. She can't keep this a secret. She needs help. Her skin is crawling and buzzing and nothing feels right and she’s trying, she’s trying to control it like May taught her but she can’t. She can’t. She’s letting May down and she’s a disappointment and a burden and they’re going to kick her out but maybe if she tells Coulson first…

Her and Fitz talk in the storage area in lowered voices.

“I thought that I could handle it but I can’t. It’s too much. I think we have to tell Coulson what’s happening,” Skye says. She needs to tell Coulson. But she goes to Fitz first because it would be easier if she had his support. And another hug wouldn’t be so bad either…

Fitz puts his hands up in disagreement. “Hang on. Wait. Just wait until I’ve alread...analyzed-”

“I can’t control it when I get upset. Or nervous,” she confesses. And she is nervous all the time. All the goddamn time and she can’t stop it. She doesn’t want to feel like this anymore.

“Have you heard Simmons,” Fitz tries to convince her, “and her deadly arterially program.”

Skye refrains from rolling her eyes at that dramatic exclamation. Jemma is just scared, like she is scared. Jemma is scared because she doesn’t understand and she just wants to protect people because Jemma is the kind of person who would stare down Nazis and jump out of planes to protect people. And Fitz must know this.

Skye tells him, “Simmons is just upset about Trip. She’s trying to stop bad things from happening.” And Skye understands. She wishes she could stop it.

“I don’t recognize her right now.” Fitz says. And Skye doesn’t know what is going on between Fitz and Jemma right now, but she suspects it has less to do with Jemma’s reaction to Trip’s death and more to do with Jemma leaving.

“Do you recognize any of us?” she asks. Trip is dead. Trip is dead and something is _wrong_ with her and nothing is right anymore.

Then Fitz tells her that he was hallucinating Jemma, the way she was before. And, shit. Okay. That’s, a lot. Skye wants to comfort him but she doesn’t know how. She can’t help him anymore than he can help her.

“Please,” he begs her, “just let me figure out exactly what-”

But this is too much, too much for them to handle alone. And she doesn’t understand what Fitz thinks he can do with her blood samples. He’s not even a biologist and shit, she needs help. She needs Coulson. This is all going to fall apart.

* * *

The building is falling apart around her.

She can’t control it, she can’t control it, she can’t control it.

_“A Kree slave warrior”_

May grabs her and they run like hell. She vaguely registers that they are in the basement and May is telling her to control her emotions and make it stop but she can’t.

_“A monstrocity”_

“You can do this. We can do this.”

She can’t. She has no idea how to stop this. And it’s not her, but it is.

_“These creatures are weapons, abominations, even if they don’t know it”_

Sounds are too loud, bursting with energy and she has no idea where it is coming from. It is inside of her but it isn’t. It’s outside too. And she doesn’t understand how she is existing outside her own body.

_“An army”_

How is she supposed to control something that is so much bigger than herself? Her heart is racing, pounding, beating at her chest trying to escape. She wants to put it all back inside. She has no idea how.

“I can’t make it stop.”

She is going to get all of them killed. She can feel the building, somehow, all around her. It is alive, and breathing, in time with her own breaths but she can't breath, she _can’t_. It is too much. There is so much energy and she doesn’t know how to make it stop. Just stop.

“Everyone is at risk.”

They are going to die like Trip did.

It was all her fault.

Sif is there with a sword. “Agent May!”

No.

Protect them. Protect them. Protect them.

Okay. She can do that. Protect them.

She reaches out and grabs May’s gun. Glancing at it she sees that it is an ICER. She shoves it against her treacherously beating heart and pulls the trigger.

Everything goes dark.

* * *

Skye wakes up in her bunk. May is beside her. The world is buzzing less than before. Instead she has a massive headache. Oh. Yeah. She ICED herself.

“What happened?” she asks May. “Wheres Sif? Is everyone okay?”

“She’ll be going back to Asgard,” May answers. And shit, did that mean _she_ was getting taken to Asgard too?

“I-”

May reassures her, “You’re staying right here. She agreed. And we’ve wiped Vin-Taks memories.”

Okay. That was, okay. But May never answered her first question.

“The others-”

“Everyone is fine.” May looks at her intently. “How are you feeling?”

Skye thinks about it. Well, physically the world feels less like it is spinning out of control. And her body mostly feels like it is inside of her rather than outside, so that’s an improvement. And apparently she didn’t hurt anyone and she’s not going to get sent to an Asguardian prison after all. So, she’s probably about as well as could be expected.

“I’m, okay.”

May lets out a breath of relief and then her whole expression and body hardens. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

But what choice did she have? She couldn’t control herself and she had to protect them.

“May-”

May shakes her head. “I’m serious Skye. We will figure out how to deal with this. Hurting yourself is never the answer.”

Skye frowns. It sounded bad when she said it like that.

“It was just an ICER.”

May is looking at her intently again. “Did you know?”

“What?”

“Did you know it was an ICER,” she asks.

Skye says, “I, yeah. I checked, before I…shot myself…” Okay, it sounded _really_ bad when she said it like that.

May does not look appeased with that answer. “And what if it hadn’t been?”

And goddamnit couldn’t May just be a little less perceptive sometimes.

“I, you never carry a real gun,” she tries.

May doesn’t buy that non-answer. “Skye, if it hadn’t been an ICER, would you have done the same thing.”

Skye hesitates, then says, “No.” It’s not a lie. Not really. If it hadn’t been an ICER, Skye thinks she probably would have aimed for the head, just to be sure. She’s not suicidal, she doesn’t want to die, but, if it was the only way to protect them, to stop the building from caving in and killing them all ~~just like she killed Trip~~ she thinks she probably would have done it.

May keeps frowning at her. Skye wonders what she is thinking. If she knows. But May heard what Vin-Tak said. She is an abomination that needs to be put down. And maybe he is right. She can't control this. She is a danger to everyone.

“Don’t ever do that again,” May repeats.

Skye doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to die or hurt herself. She didn’t want any of this. But it never matters what she wants.

* * *

**2x13**

_Five years ago_

“Morning.” Skye blinks awake and looks over at the woman lying in bed with her. Kira leans over and kisses her softly. She makes a face. “Morning breath,” she explains. Skye giggles and kisses her on the cheek.

“We should get up,” she says quietly.

“Ugh I suppose so.”

They start to get dressed. Kira holds out her arm handing Skye her bra and then frowns, noticing the slot that has been sewn into it and holds an sd card.

“What’s this?” Kira asks her. Skye bites her lip, hesitating. She finishes getting dressed thinking about it. She hasn’t told anyone since since leaving St. Agnes. She had to put it on hold for a while and anyway there was a difference between looking for her parents while at an orphanage, and being twenty years old, and still looking for them…

She decides to show her anyway. She sits back down on the bed and Kira sits next to her, taking her hand.

“You know how I grew up in foster care and in the orphanage.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m… looking for them,” Skye admits somewhat embarrassed. “My parents.”

She explains the mystery and the wiped files and how she hasn’t been able to find anything.

Kira regards her carefully and nods. “Well, if anyone can find them, it’s you. Maybe I can help. Two hackers are better than one.”

Skye blinks in surprise. She’s not sure what reaction she was expecting, but an offer to help wasn’t it. “You’d do that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Skye shrugs. “I don’t know, its kinda…” She picks uncomfortably at the comforter. “I had a shrink once who said I was ‘using my fantasy of having parents who wanted me to avoid coping with the real world.’”

Kira makes an incredulous face. “What a dick.”

“Right? As if he knew anything about the real world.” Him with his stupid degrees from his fancy school and…

“Do you think I’m being naive?” she asks Kira.

Kira considers her. “I don’t know. Is it naive to be optimistic? I like that you’re not cynical. Even after everything you’ve been through.”

“Aren’t I though?” Skye feels both naive and childish and like she is carrying the cynicism of a hundred years of history. And she vacillates between the two on any given day.

Kira shakes her head. “You’re snarky and sarcastic but you still think you can change the world.”

“I just think its a world that needs changing.”

Kira smiles at her and reaches up to Skye’s forehead to brush aside her bangs. “Hopeful, that’s what you are. I think that’s beautiful.”

Skye blushes faintly, which was kind of ridiculous, considering, but it's a strange feeling, seeing herself through someone else’s eyes. Kira is right though, she still has hope. Sometimes it scares her.

She clears her scratchy throat and says, “He also said I called him a shrink out of a misguided resentment about not being able to accept help from other people because I hadn’t been offered it as a child. I told him I called him a shrink because if I called him an asshole the nuns would get mad at me.”

At that pronouncement Kira looks like she is torn between fury at the therapist, and amusement, at Skye’s antics.

Skye adds, “But uh, in his defense, I probably made his life miserable…”

Kira frowns at that. “It was his job to help you.”

Skye shrugs. “I don’t think he know how…I don’t think any of them knew what to do with me. Maybe that wasn’t them.”

Kira sighs. “You’re too kind for your own good, you know that? I don’t know how you survived this long.”

“Gee, thanks…”

Kira looks at her fondly. “I’m just saying, not everything is your fault, you know.”

Now

Andrew is not like other therapists she’s had. And not just because he is May’s ex-husband. She can tell right away that he is not going to put up with her bullshit. And he sat her down and told her from the get go exactly what he would be disclosing to SHIELD and what he wouldn’t be.

“If you’re a danger to yourself or others-”

Skye snorts. “We already know I’m a danger to others. That’s kinda why you’re here.”

“Okay. Let me be more specific. If I think you are going to intentionally harm others in any way, not following the orders of your bosses, that is, or if I think that you are in danger of attempting suicide, I will be reporting that. Anything else will stay between us.”

“Wait, so if I said Coulson told me to take you out,” Skye snarks.

Andrew raises an eyebrow unimpressed.

“If I said I wanted to hurt myself?”

Andrew doesn’t miss a beat. “I would say that is an extremely destructive coping skill, and you and I should work on finding you a new one.”

Skye rolls her eyes, cause like, destructive was kinda her thing, apparently. “You have all the answers, don’t you,” she says bitterly.

Andrew says nothing, just regards her carefully.

“I don’t. For the record. Want to,” Skye tells him truthfully.

“Okay,” Andrew agrees. “Are you ready to talk now?”

She is slightly annoyed by his complete lack of reaction to her antagonism. Or maybe she is slightly worried because if she can’t fall back on that, how is she supposed to avoid talking about shit? Well, there is something they can talk about.

“Yeah, let’s talk…So, May?” Skye leans forward, smiling broadly. “Tell me about the wedding.”

She rambles about May for a bit before Andrew asks her calmly, “How long are you going to deflect?” Goddamnit. Couldn’t he just let her have this. “I read your history.” Goddamnit goddamnit why did she give that file back to Koenig she should have deleted it.

She brings up the “Calvary” out of last ditch deflection attempt but that seems to cross a line, and yeah okay, but she was desperate.

“Stop.”

Skye sighs, leaning back. She doesn’t want to do this.

He asks her why she shot herself. She clears up at once that she’s not suicidal. Getting put in a mental hospital would kinda suck right now. Although could they even send her to a mental hospital? She didn’t technically exist. SHIELD was still an illegal agency. Oh god what did SHIELD do with mentally ill people on their index?

“You’re an agent,” Andrew says leaning forward. “And I imagine you must be afraid you’re gonna lose that.”

Skye leans her head back and looks away. No. She doesn’t want to do this. She can’t do this. She doesn’t know how. She’s never been able to. Not really. The words won’t come. They get stuck in her head in her throat in her mouth.

Andrew leans back. “We eloped,” he tells her.

Oh. He is trying to make her comfortable.

“We didn’t want a big wedding. And no, it wasn’t Vegas. Although Melinda does love Vegas.” He looks off into the distance and with a small fond smile before looking back at her and laughing a little.

Okay. Maybe this guy isn’t so bad.

* * *

They had a plan and it all went to hell, because of course it did. Her father (who apparently thought that Coulson and SHIELD raised her, and wouldn’t that have been something) was teleported away by some man and some sort of electric blue bubble.

The fight broke out quickly after that.

Andrew runs over to her and leads her off and out of the way. They stop at the edge of the field. Skye turns to watch.

May had one on the ground. Coulson tackled another to the ground.

The man sits there looking up at Coulson in fear. Skye has seen this before. People getting hurt and no one to stop it.

“No, no, please no!” the man begs.

She couldn’t stop it. Shouldn’t she be helping them?

Coulson hits the man with the case.

She was helpless.

May’s gun falls from Skye’s hand to the ground.

That dark cynical side of her that she tries to ignore raises its voice.

_This is what SHIELD does. What the system always does. They don’t care about people. They put them on watch lists. They monitor them. They lock them in cages. They put them down. Just like you did with Donnie._

She can feel something building inside of her. Something she can’t control. She can’t stop it. She wants to stop it. Just stop.

_It’s too late. It’s already started. This is what SHIELD does to threats. You are a threat._

The ground started shaking. No, no, _no_.

_“No!”_ It is Trip’s voice screaming in her ear.

Don’t hurt them. Not like Trip. Keep it together. Don’t hurt them. Don’t let it out, keep it in. She holds her breath.

She looks down. There is pain in her arms.

And then nothing. Just darkness.

* * *

Andrew knew this was a bad idea. He knew it was a bad idea when Skye suggested it. “I’ll ICE myself,” she said, as if that made it _better_. He knew it was bad when Melinda handed him the ICER. He knew it was bad when she pointed her own gun at Skye’s head. It was hard, both as a therapist, and as someone who loved her, to watch her force herself to do something he knew was sure to give her more nightmares. It was hard to watch Skye too. As she stared in horror from Melinda to Phil. As she listened to the man plead. And it was the pleading that did it. It was not hard knowing even only the vague outline of Skye’s history to guess why.

Andrew feels the ground start to shake. He knows what is happening at once, but he doesn't raise the ICER. Instead he approaches Skye where she is frozen, looking down at her arms. And then, suddenly, she collapses. Andrew can see Melinda and Phil running towards them in his periphery but he is closest. He catches her.

“What happened?”

Phil gasps, “Her arms.”

They all look down at her in horror. Her arms are covered in bruises. So _that_ was the true cost of her powers.

“We need to get her back,” Melinda states.

“I’ve got her,” Andrew assures her. She nods and gestures to Phil to take care of the unconscious men still lying on the field. Phil sighs, and carefully places Skye’s arms over her stomach before going to help May cuff and move the others.

Andrew walks with her back to the Bus. She is very small in his arms. She is very young. She is covered in bruises. And he has the distinct feeling that he is carrying her home.

He carries her back to her room on the Bus. The cage, she had called it. He hasn’t had time yet to figure out exactly how deep her feelings of being a monster run, but he doesn’t have a lot of time left with her, because seeing everything he just saw, he knows he can’t stay. SHIELD hasn’t changed. None of it has changed.

He places Skye carefully on the bed and he and Phil sit by her bedside while Melinda flies them back to base. Physically she seems to have passed out from the pain and emotional trauma. They would have to run some scans on her arms, but it was possible they were fractured as well as bruised. As soon as the plane lands Melinda is back in the room with Dr. Simmons.

“What happened?” Simmons exclaims horrified, looking at Skye’s arms.

“You have a theory,” Melinda says, looking at him.

Andrew nods. Yes, it wasn’t hard to figure out. “Her powers, they’re tied to her emotions. When she tries to keep her emotions contained, her powers get contained too. She was suppressing them. Drawing them inward.”

“She did it to herself,” Simmons whispers.

Phil rubs his hand over his face. “Oh Skye…”

Melinda’s face goes cold. Ah, Andrew realizes. Melinda loves this girl. So maybe some things have changed. And he knows exactly what she overcame to open her heart like that and he is as proud and happy for her as he is scared for her. Because this situation is fragile and she has no more control over it than Skye does.

They decide to sedate Skye and then Simmons takes the scans of her arms and confirms micro-fractures. After, they all wait for her to wake up. Simmons sits on the bed with her, gently pulls the splints over her arms, carefully arranges her hand on her stomach, and brushes her hair out of her face. Coulson and May watch over her the whole time. Andrew wonders if Skye has any idea, how much she is loved. He wonders if anyone has ever told her.

This was sure to end badly. And it only confirms how much he cannot be here. Because SHIELD has never been equipped to handle powered people. And Skye had a hell of a choice to make now. To continue working for an agency that has never shown any compassion towards people like her, because this is where the people who love her are. It would likely be better if she was sent away now, before she has to be the one to make that choice. She needs to be somewhere safe, and SHIELD has never been safe for people like her.

Andrew doesn’t envy her. He vows to help her as much as he can before he needs to leave. But still, he knows he is leaving her in good hands.

* * *

Skye and Andrew are back in their now familiar positions. She sits on the bed and he sits on the chair across from her. He is going to recommend that she leave SHIELD, she knows it.

“You need to be somewhere safe to deal with this,” Andrew explains calmly.

“I _am_ safe here,” Skye snaps. “They all fought off an alien and a god to make sure I was safe. They would never hurt me.”

“Okay,” Andrew says, “So you know you’re safe, but do you feel it?”

Skye glares at him.

“When the shaking started, the man-”

Skye cuts him off. She can’t, she can’t talk about that. They always tried to make her talk about it but she can barely even think about it. “I, know. Okay. I already know. And I, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Andrew just nods, not pushing. “Okay. Was there something else you wanted to talk about?”

Skye looks away. There is, and there is no one else that she can really talk to about it. And she needs to tell someone, to confess. (What a strange old instinct.) She pauses, then blurts out, “I’ve never been to a funeral.”

Andrew tilts his head, inviting her to go on.

“Trip,” she manages. And his name still burns in her throat. “They had one for Trip. And I didn’t go. I couldn’t go.”

“Couldn’t?”

Couldn’t. She wanted to. She did. She couldn’t.

“It was before they knew. When I was trying to keep it a secret. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my powers hidden. I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

Andrew looks like he doesn’t quite believe her. She is not sure she quite believes herself.

“Is that the only reason?” he asks.

No.

“I couldn’t go, because, because the person who killed that person shouldn’t be at their funeral. Right?” She forces herself to look at Andrew. His expression is warm. Like he doesn’t think he is looking right at a monster.

“Why do you think you killed him?”

“Got him killed,” Skye corrects frustratedly. “Whatever.” He doesn’t understand.

But Andrew just asks calmly, “Why do you think you got him killed?”

“I could have stopped it,” she whispers. This is the truth. This is the confession. So monumental, that if she says it, if she explains it, he must understand. Then he will see her, and he won’t want to help her ever again.

“How?”

“Raina. She, I could have just shot her, or, something. I could have stopped her.”

Andrews expression is unreadable. “Why didn’t you?”

Skye can’t get the words out properly. They are caught in her throat. They burn and sting. But he needs to know. Someone needs to know. She keeps trying to tell people and they keep not understanding. Andrew would listen. He would understand. It was all her fault.

“I, I don’t know. I, I wanted to know, what would happen. I wanted, I don’t know. _Something_. I could _feel_ it. It was, pulling me towards it. Keeping me there.” She could feel it pulling her the same way she felt the designs and carvings calling to her. The same way she knew, the moment she saw it, it was a map. And the answers, all of the answers were there, in the obelisk, leading her towards, _something_. “I wanted, I wanted to know. What would happen. I _wanted_. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”

Andrew takes a deep long sigh. Like now he gets it. Like now he understands. She waits. But he just says, “You didn’t choose this Skye.”

“What difference does that make.” She snaps it at him. She begs it of him.

“I think it makes all the difference in the world.”

She shakes her head. “It was me. It, it must have been. It had to be.”

“I’m sorry, Skye. I’m sorry that I have to tell you it wasn’t.”

This is such a baffling thing to say that it stops all of her spiraling thoughts in their tracks.

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because if you accept that it wasn’t your fault, then you have to accept that something happened to you. Something that you had no control over. Maybe things have been happening to you that you couldn’t control your entire life. And that’s a heavy weight to carry.”

Skye hears what he is saying. But…

“I should have gone to his funeral, at least. If it was me, he would have gone.” He would have gone. And he would have left flowers. That’s what people do? Isn’t it?

Andrew tries a new line of questioning. “What if it _had_ been you? What if he was the one sitting here instead? Would it have been his fault?”

But it was different. It was different because she went in there and she let it happen and Trip would never, ever let that happen. He would have had her back. She failed, she failed, she failed him. He came to get her, he came to save her, and he never should have been down there in the first place.

“What would he have said to you, if he was here?”

Skye closes her eyes for a moment. In her dreams, she sees him. She sees him smiling. She feels his comforting presence. He always had her back. She imagines him here now. She takes a long deep breath. Opens her watery eyes.

“He would have said, ‘Come on, girl. Don’t blame yourself for that shit.’”

“Seems like a smart man,” Andrew remarks gently.

Skye agrees tearfully, “He was.”

Andrew hands her a tissue. Skye laughs into her choked breaths. Where did those even come from? Did therapists just carry around boxes of tissues? (She’s never cried in front of a therapist before.) She takes a tissue and wipes at her eyes.

* * *

**2x14**

Skye is sitting getting her check up with Jemma when Fitz says that her injuries could be growing pains and compares them to the Avengers. Well, that was a nice thought, but Avenger she is not.

“If there is an Avengers equivalent, right now, I’m afraid its the Hulk,” Jemma says to Fitz pointedly.

Skye winces at that. The Hulk. The monster who was so out of control. That Banner could never control. That took him over and took over his life and left a trail of destruction behind.

Fitz snaps back about how Banner saved the world and then says, “I guess we should be thankful no one's given him the choice.”

But oh god shouldn’t it be a choice? Surely it should be right? If Banner had to turn into some monster that he couldn’t contain and be used and god she didn’t want this. She didn’t choose this. She couldn’t control this. She could barely control her powers as it was. What if somehow they were used and it wasn’t her choice? What if she hurt more people? What if…Jemma and Fitz’s voices were raised louder and oh god she hates arguing. The plane is shaking. Shit. She didn’t mean to do that.

“This really isn’t about you,” Jemma tries.

“I’m pretty sure it is.”

Because whatever Fitz and Simmons issues were right now they wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for her.

She goes back to the cage.

* * *

It’s not long after that Coulson finds her in the cage. She is trying to pass time. (She’s fine. She’s totally absolutely fine.)

“You’re gonna want to pack a bag.”

There it was. The words she has been waiting to hear since she first stepped on to the Bus.

They were kicking her out. Or maybe it was just May. This seemed more like her call than Coulson’s. Just when she started to think, this is my life now, this could be my home, it was over. Maybe she was fooling herself and they never really wanted her. Maybe they just let her stick around because they felt sorry for her.

(That’s fine. She’s fine.)

Skye wishes she could say that she had lost track of how many times this happened to her but she remembered all of them from the time she was old enough to have memories. She wishes she could say that it didn’t hurt this time, that she was used to it, that she understands why and this time was different, but it hurt all the same. She had wanted this. Bad. She got attached. She knew better. She only has herself to blame.

* * *

**2x15**

“They’re coming for you,” May warns her.

“Who?”

“SHIELD.”

SHIELD. SHIELD was coming for her. They were chasing her. She ducks under tree branches, looking for cover. Her heart races and she lets it drive her faster, faster. She makes it to the electrical panel but she can feel, there is someone behind her.

She fights the agent. The SHIELD agent. Who was surely there to take her in or worse. What the hell happened? Did SHIELD get taken over? Who was doing this?

She takes his gun and points it at him. She needs answers. She doesn’t have time to get them.

A desperate voice is calling her name. Bobbie?

There is a gun pointed at her and Skye drops her own and puts her hands up instinctively. The man fires. Skye doesn’t want to die. And she really doesn’t want to get shot again either.

She isn’t quite sure what happens next.

A burst of power forces its way out of her. Stops the bullet that was headed towards her head. And levels the entire clearing.

Bobbie and the man go flying. And everything goes eerily still.

Oh god. What has she _done_? What kind of, _monster_ , can do that? What _was_ she?

It hits her then, suddenly and brutally and out of nowhere but with perfect clarity, that Agent Avery did not bring her to America and hide her in the foster system to protect her. No. She did it to protect people _from_ her.

Bobbie stirrs on the ground.

Skye was a weapon. One that SHIELD needed to track and control and keep out of the wrong hands, or else put down. And maybe they were right.

The man is motionless.

What was she supposed to do now?

She needs help.

“Gordan, help.”

“Would you like to go home?”

She would _like_ to go _back_. She wants Coulson. She wants May. She wants Fitz and Jemma. She wants Trip. She wants to not be a danger to other people. She wants to not be a danger to herself. She just nods.

* * *

**2x16**

Skye wakes up naked in a strange room with needles all over her body. And apparently she’s been here for two days. She doesn’t remember how she got here. She remembers Gordan, and then, nothing. Two days. A lot could go wrong in two days. What happened at SHIELD? What happened to her friends?

A scruffy blond man walks in to the room.

They’re healing her? Really? Who was this man? And now he was making some lame analogy about popcorn kernels like what? But the dorkiness of it all makes her feel safer at least, if frustrated.

“Who are you?” she asks him, annoyed.

“Sorry I thought, I’m Lincoln, you’re transitioner,” he answered like that explained it.

But Lincoln is trying to help. She can tell he’s sincere about it, even though she is pretty sure he is hiding something. But he’s being honest about wanting to help her at least, and that will have to do until she can get the truth from him.

It’s a weird circumstance, but the strangest part is that not long after the needles are removed Skye realizes that she feels better, physically. For the first time since she got these powers, she feels okay. The headache, nausea, and itching feeling has gone away. She can still feel her powers, foreign and unwelcome, something she can't control. But at least sounds are sounds and sights are sights and everything makes a little more sense. The constant buzzing has dulled. She doesn’t feel it under her skin anymore so much as she just, knows it’s there. And she feels tired, but it’s the most like herself that she has felt in a long time.

* * *

Skye talks and jokes with Lincoln until he finally lets slip what he has been hiding.

Raina.

She goes to find her. The ground trembles. The door bursts open. And then she is there, in front of her. Raina. All of this, it could be traced back to her father, to Ward, and to Raina.

“I didn’t make you follow me into that chamber. You wanted to go. You needed to go. Because we’re the same, Skye. We were the same before, and we’re the same now. I am on the outside what you are on the inside.”

No. Her and Raina are not the same. They’re not.

She was trying to stop her. She was trying to save people. She was _trying_. She didn’t _ask_ for this. She didn’t want _this_. She didn’t _choose_ this. (And that made all the difference.)

Her body has been changed in some fundamental way she does not understand.

_He is frozen in time, lifeless and cracked and gone._

All she feels is anger. She thinks she can break the whole world apart with the enormity of her rage. (She could bring down buildings, tear continents apart.)

It is _Raina’s_ fault. It is not her fault. (She was designed to destroy.)

But maybe she can only break apart herself.

_Her body is fracturing and breaking. Rebuilding and buzzing._

Trip is dead because of ~~her~~ Raina. (She killed him.)

_His body crumbles into pieces._

Something inside her has been unlocked. (A monster.)

She can't control it.

_She is reaching. So is he._

Or can she? If they are the same, and she kills Raina, will she die too?

Skye clenches her fists. Maybe it’s time to let it out.

She can feel the power. And for the first time, she feels like she can control it. Finally she has somewhere to direct it to. All the anger, all the pain, all the loathing. It was all Raina.

Someone stops her.

A woman.

And there is something about her.

Something…

“I can’t stay,” Skye states.

“We’ll leave that choice to you,” the woman says. “But I have chosen to be your guide, should you remain with us. All I ask is for a few days. I’ll look after you, train you, watch you grow.”

And Skye… doesn’t understand.

She is too overwhelmed by it all to speak. Lincoln guides her away, back to her room.

That woman. There was something about her. And she is offering her something that Skye doesn’t really understand. A choice. Does she have a choice now? She can’t remember having a choice in so long. The idea is foreign. Elusive. What _does_ she want? What does _she_ want? How can she tell? Between what she wants and what she needs to do? How can she stay here when she might be needed back at SHIELD? But she _wants_ , she wants to stay here. She wants to learn. About these powers and these people. And that woman. And, it feels right. It feels right in a way that nothing has felt right in so long. Maybe she can stay here, just for a little while.

* * *

**Post 2x16**

_She is back in the underground city. Back in the Kree temple. She follows Raina._

_“It’s our destiny, Skye,” Raina says. “We finally get to find out what we become.”_

_The obelisk explodes._

_Trip looks at her, his eyes sad and disappointed._

_“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”_

_His face morphs into Donnie Gill’s._

_“You killed me. You’re a murderer.”_

_She shakes her head. “I didn’t want to.”_

_His cold face transforms into Fitz’s. “Why did you leave? I thought you understood.”_

_“No, I didn’t. I’m coming back. I swear. I will.”_

_Into Jemma’s. “You’ve been contaminated, Skye. You need to be put down before you infect someone else.”_

_“No. I’m still me. I’m still you’re friend.”_

_Jemma’s disapproving frown fades into May’s disappointed one. “You’re weak. A burden on the rest of us.”_

_“I tried. I tried to be strong like you taught me.”_

_May turns into Coulson. “You let me down Skye. I gave you a chance when no one else would, and you let me down.”_

_“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wanted to fix it. I wanted to make it right.”_

Skye wakes up to someone shaking her. She sits upright with a gasp.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me.” It’s Lincoln. Just Lincoln. But everything is still shaking and she can’t control it.

“Lincoln. Oh god, I can't stop it-”

He is calm. How is he so calm?

“That’s okay. Let it out. Don’t draw it in. Just let it out.” His voice is steady and she focuses on it. “It’s just a little earthquake, no big deal. See, there?” The shaking has slowed. She takes a deep breath. She did it.

“Is everyone okay? Did I-”

Lincoln shakes his head. “Everyone is fine. Probably still asleep. My room is closest.”

But she still feels the guilt. God, why was she such a mess. “I’m sorry. I, I didn’t mean to…”

“I know. It’s okay, Skye, really.”

She shakes her head. It’s not. Nothing is okay. “No, I, I could have hurt people. I, I’m just like Raina said. I’m a monster.”

“Hey, no. You’re not a monster.” He looks at her sincerely, “I promise.”

And Skye believes that he believes it. He is not looking at her like she’s a monster. He just looks concerned. And for a moment, she sees herself though his eyes. For a moment, she believes it too. She takes a breath.

“I’m sorry. I’m not usually this much of a mess,” she says, embarrassed. 

“I think you’re doing well, all things considered. I was just as much of mess when I transitioned. If not more. And I never…before… you said your friend Trip..?”

“Yeah… He um… he followed me into the temple. The diviner killed him…”

“That wasn’t you’re fault,” Lincoln says at once.

Skye shrugs. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was just bad luck that the fragments hit him. Maybe it was the price heroes paid. Because if he had done nothing, he would still be here. So maybe it wasn’t her fault. Maybe it was just so fucking tragic that she couldn’t stand the thought of it.

“Is that what your nightmare was about?” Lincoln asks.

Skye looks aways. Doesn’t say anything.

Lincoln backtracks at once, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to push. But if you want to talk, I’m here.”

“I..I dream that I’m back in the temple. Trip is there and then, he changes and it’s my friends and they, they say things that… that they wouldn’t really say…” That is the worst part of her nightmares, they are always so vivid, and they feel so real, that she can never tell the difference until she wakes. 

She admits. “I feel different now. Everything, it all feels different. It’s like, I’m a stranger in my own skin…” Because even though she has felt better upon waking, it still doesn’t feel quite right. “These… powers…I don’t understand it…”

“Jiaying will help you with that,” Lincoln reassures her. “Once you train with her, you’ll feel better. Your body will feel like it’s yours again.”

“So this is normal?”

“Everyone’s experience is unique. But you’ll find what works for you.” He sounds calm and confident and it does reassure her.

“I wish…I wish I got to choose,” Skye admits. “I mean, I wish it didn’t happen, but if it did, I wish I chose it…It’s stupid. I mean, on the scheme of things…it’s not…”

“It’s not stupid. It’s a big change. It should have been your decision. I’m sorry that was taken from you. We spend months, years preparing for it. And even then… it’s hard. But it gets easier.”

He looks at her so earnestly, so sincere in wanting to help her, the way he’s been trying ever since she got here, that she is slightly taken aback.

“Do I have something on my face..?” Lincoln asks jokingly.

“What?” says Skye, startled.

“You’re staring,” Lincoln explains bemusedly. He is still sitting on her bed, leaned towards her and Skye glances down to his hand which is resting on her leg. Lincoln follows her gaze and blushes, removing his hand at once.

Her mouth twitches into a smile that she covers up. Oh, she thinks, Lincoln is cute. What a mess.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” she asks him.

He smiles, “Yeah.”

Afterlife looks beautiful at night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: ‘Through the Eyes of a Child’, Skye loves and loses her mother, Skye becomes Daisy, the rest of season 2


End file.
